


The Umbrella Academy oneshots and short stories and similar fun things

by hydesboy



Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:01:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 31,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25783285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydesboy/pseuds/hydesboy
Summary: Various one shots based on The Umbrella Academy because i enjoy writing and my love for this fandom has been revived because of the second season on the showBoth comic and show canons, and requests are gonna always be open (within reason, nothing NSFW and absolutely no inc*st because YIKES) Based on the series by Gerard Way
Comments: 57
Kudos: 62





	1. New Ability

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diego gets to learn another power he has, but doesn't have the time to think about it

The very air itself seemed to be ringing with some intent that no unfortunate listener could ever hope to identify what on earth the intention happened to be, even if there was time for anyone to stop and think long enough on the matter to ponder meaning behind sound. But, in the lives of superheros, this was a luxury that was rarely afforded, and even less likely to be granted.  
The children, for they were but children thrust into a danger that no children deserved, were in quite a pickle, as it seemed there was something bestial occupying both the land, the skies, and the waters and these beasts were far greater than four children seemed. The shadow was all there was to be seen of the something large and almost resembling an archaeopteryx in excessive technicolour that circled overhead, waiting for the perfect moment to swoop down with some foul intent in its mind. Upon the bridge stamped an impatient, zebra striped beast that looked almost what one could imagine a rendition of an elephant might look like if one had never seen one and so needed to use word of mouth, a large, eyeless head rolling as it listened for the faintest signs of life so it would know where to charge. In the canal beneath the aforementioned bridge lay some huge, tentacled behemoth - the sort that brought about images of the inter-dimentional beast that the recently deceased Ben could bring forth, though this was a wound that was too fresh to poke at - reached out in search of prey to drag back down into the watery depths it had claimed as its own. Worse still, the man, the one that had forced this fate upon the innocent eagle, elephant, and octopus that had been happily residing in a nearby zoo, had managed to sneak away while the havoc was being brought about. Thankfully there was one of the siblings able to pursue him, but this left the remaining four with even less on their side than they had previously.

"Alright, Kraken, Séance," Luther hissed out under his breath to avoid drawing attention, using the code names their Father had given them, "Head to the left, Rumor and I- Diego!" Any strategising was immediately thrown to the side as the moment Number One started giving orders, Number Two immediately went against this.

Dashing out from where they were hiding, Diego Hargreeves charged the elephantine beast, drawing some of the collection of knives he had strapped to him out of their numerous holsters, the blade glittering in the mid-afternoon sunlight. This was all very dramatic, and definitely heroic to witness, but unfortunately the action was done out of a desire to not listen to Luther rather than coming out of any better plans having been formulated. His footsteps were thundering, echoing against the stone of the bridge until, all of a sudden, they weren't.

Too fixated on the land-dwelling monstrosity, he had not noticed the aquatic entity had also become aware of his presence and, without even a sense of remorse or clear malicious intent - and of course it didn't, it was a beast doing what it was made to do, and so there was nothing technically nothing wrong with this in the sense of the beast's own morality - the almost (presently) ironically named The Kraken was hoisted up high into the air and then dragged down into the water. The lad, all scars and scabs and reckless certainty, had been there one moment and had wholly vanished the next. This was frightening enough for the onlookers, his siblings who had all too recently seen one of their own killed, but for the one who had been captured it was something else entirely.

It had happened so quickly that Diego had not had the chance to take a breath before he was under the water and was being dragged down deeper and deeper, further and further away from the air that he had gotten far too accustomed to breathing. Panic fluttered in his chest all of a sudden, a frantic bird desperate to be freed from its bony prison. With a blade in each hand, he hacked away at the slimy appendage that had sort to do him harm, hoping that he might free himself before the lack of oxygen drained him of this ability.  
But, as seconds turned to minuted, the ache in his lungs that he had been expecting never came.

In fact, not only did his lungs feel perfectly fine despite having gone for a good seven minutes without a breath, he didn't even feel the expected need to take a breath at all. Had he ever? He'd certainly been told people were supposed to breath, and so had gotten into the habit of it, but Diego couldn't recall a time that he had actually needed this to go about his ordinary daily functionings.

But there was far more important things to think about at that moment, so the logistics of breathing were far from his mind.

The battle that raged was mighty, knives hacking away at the appendages that intended to do him harm, and when blades weren't helping as much, his fists and legs joined the battle until, finally, he managed to free himself from the beast. Rather conveniently, a matter of moments after he had won his freedom, the octopine beast was all of a sudden reduced to nothing more than that, the simple octopus it had once been, swimming away from the apparent danger it might have still been in.  
Clawing his way back to the surface, adrenaline still heightening his senses, he simply floated there for a moment.

The other siblings had managed to bring an end to the whole ordeal in the time it took for him to win his freedom. Five had managed to find the person that had caused this and had dragged the man back to the others, Luther had the villain held up in the air by the scruff of his coat, ignoring the pitiful whining that was being put on to try and win sympathy. It was, as it always was, a successful venture, Allison was contacting the zoo so that the animals, now ordinary animals, could be returned to safety before any more harm came to them, and Klaus was keeping an eye on the eagle in case it happened to try and fly off again.

"Holy shit!" came the exclamation from Klaus at the moment he caught sight of Diego dragging himself up onto dry land, the necromantic lad heading away from the group to dash over to his bedraggled, soaked sibling.

"Klaus?" responded the waterlogged youngster, "I'm not..." he paused, very aware that seeing the one who could see the dead was not necessarily the best of signs, "I'm not dead am I?" he continued, a clear hesitation dragging down his voice.

"No...?"

"But I was under for... the hell?" If his brother's reply had not been enough to make sure he knew he was still among the living, the pounding of his heart in his ears had proved that he was still alive somehow, despite all the odd.

Somehow, despite having not had a breath since he had entered the water, and had not yet resumed doing so, Diego was still perfectly fine and had felt no different than when he was breathing. No oxygen deprivation, no dizziness, nothing worse than feeling soggy after being trapped underwater for far longer than anyone would have liked.  
This left The Kraken with much to think upon.


	2. Waiting, waiting, waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five, at the end of the world, hadn't quite lost hope yet

It had been a week already and the air still seemed to be just as heavy with unsettled dust as it had on the day that he had arrived. The silence was jarring, broken only by the occasional whistling of the wind through the broken remains of what had once undoubtedly been a rather nice old building. Too bad it had been reduced to nothing more than one pile of rubble among all the other destroyed husks that had once been ordinary buildings. The stench of death and decay filled the empty spaced where once people lived their perfectly ordinary lives - could this be what the world smelt like for Klaus all the time? Like death and suffering? - before the wonderfully mundane streetscape was replaced with a post-apocalyptic nightmare.

Poor Number Five was just a little lad, a child that was in well over his head and couldn't drag himself back. It's not that he hadn't tried, and goodness only knows how hard he tried. Tried to get home, tried to find someone - anyone! - else that was still alive out there, and what did he get? Every attempt to get back to his own time just fell flat, landing him in just another part of the hell that he had found himself trapped, and as for finding people, well, there was only so many corpses - family and strangers alike - that one so young could face before it simply got all too much for him.  
But surely his family had realised he wasn't able to get back and was, at that very moment, plotting and scheming plans to rescue him. Surely it was only a matter of minutes before he was brought back and, even with the inevitable scolding that would come from the man who called himself their father, he would be home again. Surely it was just a matter of moments and he'd be safe and with a cup of hot cocoa clasped in his hands as he brought warnings of the world he had stumbled into. Surely!

"Get away from the fair damsel, foul beast!" Five declared heroically, his voice the only thing breaking through the maddening silence that the world had become.

The 'foul beast' in question happened to be a pile of garbage and useless scraps of ruined city that he had assembled into something that was remotely bestial in shape, while the 'fair damsel' was nothing more than a relatively unscathed clothing store mannequin that he'd stumbled upon when he was out trying to find supplies to keep him going while he was waiting. To be frank, Five was bored ad was trying to kill time in any possible way that he could in the new, somehow worse world, and if that meant he had to pretend to be fighting dragons like a knight in some legend or another then, well, it was simply what he had to do. The alternative was to try and constantly fail to find his way back and there was only so many times a child could do so before it grew too detrimental to continue.  
He quite literally had all the time in the world to try and figure out what to do, and there was no crime in trying to have at least a little fun to try and chase way the ominous storm clouds that threatened to engulf his mind.

The fearsome creature of rubble crumbled with a swing of the plank of wood that was serving as a makeshift sword, but no real monster would be bested quite so easily, this he knew as a given fact, and so took a couple of extra swings for good measure, knowing it was far better to be safe than sorry. Victory! Of course he was victorious, and even though he was very much aware that his makeshift foes were incapable of fighting back it still felt good for him to be able to claim little, insignificant victories when he was trapped by the overwhelming ramifications of his most grand, disastrous failure.

Oh, how he wished he could break the silence even for an hour, but the batteries in the portable CD player he had found was not going to last forever, even if he did go and hunt down replacement batteries. He didn't know how long he would have to wait for rescue, and so he really would rather not risk losing one of the only sources of entertainment he had on offer if the wait was longer than he anticipated. He hadn't realised how much he relied upon electricity until it was completely and entirely gone. The darkness of night would creep up far faster when the only thing to chase it away was the flickering light of a busted up torch. The chill of the air seemed more final when there was nothing he could use as a heat source beyond layers of cloth, the concept of lighting a fire when he wasn't sure of what hazardous materials might have settled into the area seemed like too much of a risk, a risk he was not willing to take. He hadn't realised how much he would be wishing for a long, warm shower until the possibility was taken from him.  
The possibility for water, hot or otherwise, was dauntingly little and that made him more uncomfortable than he was really willing to ponder upon.

The Boy was miserable, he missed his family - the family that he was forced to see broken and dead when he tried to find them - and he missed the utterly abnormal way his life had been until he had made the foolish decision to jump further than he knew that he could. He had been overconfident, and got himself stuck after the end of the world, with nothing left to do but wait until his family was able to come and bring him back. Five was sure they wouldn't just leave him there, sure there must be some way for them to get to him, he just needed to keep waiting.  
He just needed to keep waiting.


	3. Who Am I?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Season 2 spoilers and coarse language, approach with caution)
> 
> Lila has a lot to deal with after everything went down

(Season 2 spoilers and coarse language, approach with caution)

One moment there was absolutely nobody there, and the next, and with a flash of light, there was somebody there all of a sudden. Upon the grassy hill of wheresoever the woman wound up - she had not been paying attention to where she was going, just to the fact it got her anywhere but the barn - Lila Pitts was finding it to be exceptionally difficult to catch her breath. There was a part of her that wanted to think this was a side effect but she had used the briefcases to travel often enough to be virtually immune to the side effects that came as a result.  
No, the reason her legs failed to keep her standing and tears were determinedly budding in the corners of her eyes no matter how hard she tried to blink them away was because her life was crumbling to pieces around her faster than the metaphoric walls had been put up.

Thankfully the grass was soft and kind enough to meet her as he half fell, half sunk down to her knees. The steely facade that she had spent years building up and maintaining over the years had managed to shatter with the ferocity that seemed reserved for one punching a mirror with all the force they could muster only to be showered in glass. Had there been a reflective surface on hand Lila just might have shattered it in an attempt to release some of the stress and actually feel better.

Yes, she had lied, and lied with ease, but each and every falsity that had dripped from her silvered tongue had been done with the belief that it was for the greater good in the end? And what was that greater good? Utter g*d damned bullshit, that's what! Every single thing she believed was a lie! Everything she lived for, everything that she was willing to risk life and limb for was nothing but a crock of pure and proper bullshit!

"Damn it," Lila hissed out through her teeth, gritted so hard together that there was shocks of pain twinging in her jaw from the force, "Pull yourself together." With a balled up fist, she rubbed at her eyes hard enough to hurt. This did not go nearly as well as she had planned it as it unfortunately just managed to smudge tears and blood into her eyes, which sent them stinging something fierce and painful.  
"Aw fuck." she lamented, weaker in that that moment than she had been allowed to be in all the years since she was taken in after her parents murder.

Had she been able to muster a laugh, things could have almost been bitterly laughable. She had lost her parents at a young age and who was the one to take her in? Take the part of a loving - if the damned woman was even capable of love - mother in the place of her own? Raised her like a little soldier? The very same fucking woman that had stolen her family, her life from her and made her believe that The Handler was the only one who could care for her!

She hadn't realised she was tearing at the grass she was perched upon until she brought her hand down too hard and jammed a terribly placed little twig under one of her fingernails. Letting out a hiss, she shook her hand in an attempt to dislodge the offending entity from her hand. It was far from the most painful thing she had experienced - she was trained as an assassin after all, and she was a pretty darned good one at that! - but it certainly did nothing to help her already fragile state. The brief shock of pain did do something in her favour, however, as it did cause her to stop her weeping. Perhaps she should weep, there was no better time or place for her to do so after all, but there was as a part of her that was telling her that she couldn't let herself let her guard drop even when she was alone, even after learning that she was playing the part of the obedient lapdog for the very person she had unknowingly sort to destroy.

Perhaps, with the suitcase in hand, she might be able to go back and save her parents and none of this would have ever happened, and she could live a simple, happy life.

Flopping back into the ground, letting out a breath that was almost a sigh, she buried her head in her hands. Lila had spent too many years in The Commission to let herself follow such wild and hopefully dreamings. So what, she'd go back and save her parents and everything would be fine and dandy would it? Of course not! If she saved them then she wouldn't be able grow up to stop The Handler from having them killed, so they would die again, and she'd stop it again and then wouldn't be able to go back again to stop it again, and it would be just one big shitty paradoxical loop that she'd have to keep jumping through time and time again, in the most literal sense.  
It was all some grand theatrical performance that she had to go back every night to play out, pretending to be happy even when she knew how it ended. But was it a comedy or a tragedy? So often the two were so intertwined that not even the keenest of eyes could tell where one ended and the other began.  
Well, that was just her life, a comic tragedy and a tragic comedy.

She did laugh, sudden and fast, despite the fact she couldn't muster even the faintest chuckle even a mere heartbeat ago. It wasn't out of any sort of merriment, however, but rather just a desperate need to release all the pent up emotions and energy that she had been trying her hardest to pretended did not exist.  
The harsh sound of what only loosely resembled laughter bounced about the area, but there was nobody there to hear it but the poor and wretched Lila herself.


	4. Of Tortoises and Eagles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klaus butchering Aesop's fables, as requested by the wonderful and marvelous xmultifandominfinityx (I recommend their works if any of the fandoms they've written for appeals to anyone here)   
> I can also 100000% do more of these ones if people like them, I had a lot of fun with it

The room had been perfectly quiet until all of three minutes ago, where Five's intentionally sought out peace and quiet was evaporated with the same speed that it took for Klaus to unceremoniously flop himself down onto the counter, tucking his legs up under him in a neat cross-legged position, gazing expectantly at his sibling.

"What is it now?" the significantly older of the two asked, a weary sigh dragging this out with all the disapproval that his incorrect and misleadingly young countenance could provide. Was it too much to ask for a moment to himself for once? He had spent so many years completely and entirely alone and so it almost felt strange to be in the company of others, especially when the others in question were those he had spent so long struggling to force himself to accept their untimely death, and so had been thrown in a loop when seeing them all alive and as well as anyone in their family could be.

"Well!" declared the other, gesturing in such a way that the gaudy peacock blue of his sheer coat fluttered about in a way that seemed excessively theatrical, "Now that you mention it," he continued as if he had not entered the room with a particular intention in mind, once more pausing for dramatic effect, "I've been thinking about your predicament!" This came with a vague gesture in the direction in his sibling's general direction.

"Have you now?" came the response, Five already beginning to wonder whether or not he would be able to simply escape this conversation or if it would be one that would simply come up again later on. Having decided that the latter was the more likely option, he simply let his attention land more directly on the extravagantly dressed fellow.

"I have!" Klaus returned, clasping his tattooed hands together, making the rings he happened to have adorned his fingers with at that moment click together in a way that he found to be particularly satisfying when it came to adding emphasis to the words. "And I have come to the conclusion that you, dear brother, are a tortoise!"

Thankfully Five had never gotten around to getting the coffee he was planning on fetching before his sibling had arrived because he most certainly would have found himself choking in a most undignified manner. He should have expected it, really, knowing full well that his brother was prone to the occasional, too frequent bout of foolishness. That said, he had never been called a tortoise, or even a similar creature before.

"From the tortoise and eagle fable!" Klaus, thankfully, explained, but at a bewildered look from his brother - not coming from an unfamiliarity with the Aesop's Fable in question, but rather to why he was being subjected to it at that very moment - took a particularly deep breath and set about elaborating on the tale.

"So, there was this tortoise that was just chilling one day, enjoying the sun and doing all the tortsoisey things that tortoises do, but he was majorly bummed out. One of his bird friends flew up and she was all 'Dude, what's wrong? You have this sweet rock in the sun!' but he was like 'Yeah but like, you won't get it, this rock's sweet and all but it's just a rock, you get me?' so she was all 'I get you," so he 'You're so lucky you have wings and can fly around have a good time with all the other birds!' so she was all 'Oh shit, bro, I could totally just pick you up with me next time and we can fly about!' and they were all 'Oh no way!' 'Oh yes way!' 'Oh no way!'"

An impatient clearing of his throat from Five, a man - a little lad that was the oldest out of any of them - who quite literally had all the time in the world, implied that his willingness to listen to the story was dwindling even faster than when he first heard that he was going to be subjected to it.

"Well anyway, the bird told our tortoise dude that she wasn't able to just give free rides, so he was all 'I've got, like, five buck on me, that chill?' and she was all 'Shout me to lunch too and we've got a deal!' so he was all 'Yeah whatever, next time I have money.' so the bird decided it was chill and scooped the tortoise up in her talons. Up up she flew, the tortoise having one hell of a wild time since he was getting further and further from from his rock, which was all he really knew since he's a tortoise and moves super so. So, there he is having the time of his life until she lost her grip on his shell and he fell. When the poor dude was dying on the ground he let out one final cry of 'Oh shit, this fucking sucks, ow ow!'"

Klaus gave himself a moment to pause, having done an unnecessarily exaggerated telling of the fable, all fitting hand gestures and attempts at putting on voices for the proverbial characters.

"And the point is, never hitch a ride with a bird because they're flakes and will mess up your plans."

There was several long moments of silence following the end of the fable, and each of these moments contained Five expressing several different emotions one after another as if his face could not quite match up with what it was he was feeling. Exasperated seemed to be largely the winning emotion, but he couldn't quite settle on this.

"It's miraculous," Five finally observed, something that was close to wonderment in his tone, even if this marveling was being weighed down by a heavy blanket of sheer exhaustion leaning forward just a little, leaning hard and heavy on his knees as he did so, "Somehow you managed to tell a moral tale while omitting all actual morality it was supposed to convey."


	5. The World's Youngest Old Man Has An Emotional Support Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five's siblings are determined to not let him be alone, being alone means there is far more of a chance for him to feel blue and that simply would not do, requested by the kind and delightful Jess10, who I hope enjoys this and my attempt at writing them being subtly protective!

Five Hargreeves was perfectly fine, thank you very much. He had spent decades alone in the post-apocalyptic ruins of what had once been the world before he was picked up and shaped into being quite literally the world's most dangerous assassin. It was a particularly unpleasant shaping too, though there was very few ways of having the literal DNA of the most dangerous assassins and killers implanted into his own, but it certainly shaped him into a threat of the highest caliber.  
He was a killer, a legend, and he was perfectly fine with sitting in an empty booth of the local doughnut shop, already four cups down and with no intention of stopping any time soon.

It was not his attention to be joined there at the booth, and he would have much rather not have to face anybody at all, not for a little while longer.

"You mind if I join you? Everywhere else, uh, everywhere else is full."

Of course, in the few seconds it had taken him to look down at his coffee, somebody had to show up to destroy the quiet he had brought for himself. Begrudgingly tearing his eyes away from the cup revealed Vanya to be standing hesitantly by the table, one hand tugging at the sleeve of her simple grey sweater, the other clasping at her violin case as if her life depended on it. Barely managing to suppress a sigh, he made a pointed show of shuffling himself closer towards the window.

"You might as well," he returned, "It's better than giving yourself stiff legs standing around when you don't have to." Ever the old man, even in his present state, he could recall each and ever ache that had began to invade his form when he was younger. Thankfully there were a few good work perks from his time at The Commission, as this had all been fixed up without even the faintest hint of discomfort to remind him that it had ever been there at all.

"I hoped to get here a little earlier," she said in way of both explanation and apology, "Rehearsal just ran a little longer than I thought it would." With this said, she sunk herself into the tacky - aesthetically and unfortunately also to the touch - red booth, her ankles neatly crossed, looking as elegant as anyone could in an oversized sweater and jeans.

The silence that followed this seemed just as loud as words ever could, perhaps even louder still, and this was only broken briefly when the kind waiter brought her tea over to the table. She had ordered a chamomile tea, which was the exact opposite of the excess of coffee that the other was drinking. It was not that neither of them had anything to say to one another, but rather that there was so much that they had to say it was simply easier for them to remain in silence instead of trying to bring any sense to the thoughts that buzzed about in each of their minds.

"Five, I-" Vanya had begun, but her attempt had fallen away as soon as it had come.

"Room for one more?" came the voice of Diego, the form of the man not waiting until there was an answer before he slunk himself down into the empty space. He had yet to order, but it was often safer to secure a place to sit before food was contemplated, or at the very least this was safer when one happened to have siblings that could be joined.

"Getting the band back together, I see." Five observed, mumbling over his drink.

"You heard about that?" the White Violin asked, shuffling just a little when she spoke. It was not that she was embarrassed about the matter, but rather it reminded her of slightly less complicated times that had long since passed.

"I read the book, don't forget."

"That was a long time ago," Diego returned, leaning against the table with one arm, looking wonderfully casual, "Things change, things get stamped out."

"Dad?" the shorter individual asked, though the clarification was not all that needed.

"Dad." both The Kraken and the White Violin confirmed with the perfect synchronization that could come from either being siblings or in a band together, both of which were applicable for the pair so it worked wonderfully.

"That is all the more reason to get back the 'Primes' back together, isn't it?"

"The 'Prime-8's'," Vanya ever so gently corrected, casting a brief glance towards Diego, "I don't think we could, not anymore..."

"Pity," Five returned, "I'd have liked to see you play."

"Was anyone going to tell us that we were meeting up today?" came the amused voice of no other than Allison Hargreeves, who was meandering her way into the building, a sauntering Klaus half a step or so behind her.

"It wasn't planned or anything like that." Vanya replied, knowing full well how much it hurt being excluded from family events, not wishing the same fate upon any of her siblings.

"We're here now," The Séance stated and he deftly hoisted himself up and planted himself between the musician and the vigilante, jingling as the variety of things that decorated the fellow clattered about, "What're we having?"

"More of a conversation than what had been intended?" offered Five, who had been the only occupant of the booth until very recently.

Settling herself down in the unoccupied space beside five, Allison carefully slid her bag under the table so it would be well and truly out of her way, and out of the way of anyone who happened to be passing by. The booth, which could fit four people, was getting a touch smug with the five siblings all seated there, six if one were to include the ghostly sixth sibling that happened to have perched himself with all the skills of one that did not have to worry about balancing behind his family.

"Oh, don't be like that," The Rumor replied, "This is nice, we haven't done anything as a normal family in far too long!" She flashed a particularly dazzling smile as she spoke that made it clear that it would have been easy for her to land acting roles even without needing to use her powers.

"We aren't a normal family." The Kraken pointed out, not sounding all to fussed by this point.

"And who would want to be? Not when we're an extraordinary family." the White Violin dared to reply, a hesitance in this that had come from years of being made to feel as though she was not a part of the family.

"An extraordinarily irritating one, perhaps." The Boy stated, though the smile that was twitching in the corners of his mouth suggested this was mere lighthearted sibling banter rather than any particular dissatisfaction with them. Well, there was no dissatisfaction at that particular moment, and that was what mattered at that moment. As if to punctuate this, he topped up his cup of coffee from the pot that he had pushed all the way off to the side even before anyone joined him there.

"How many is that now?" asked Allison, tilting her head just a little in the direction of the coffee pot.

"This will be my fifth since I got here."

"And how many since this morning?" Diego asked, sounding just a little impressed with this.

"There would be another two added onto that."

Klaus, who was at the convenient reaching distance, ever so subtly took hold of the cup when it was briefly unguarded and dragged it over towards himself to get it out of reach of the smaller individual. It was only midday, and the fact that the time manipulator had already managed to down six, nearly seven, cups of coffee would have been impressive if it wasn't far more concerning.

"You gotta cut back a little, bro, you'll poison yourself." The Kraken warned.

"I'm getting him some water," The Rumor declared, "Excuse me," said she, summoning the waiter who happened to be passing by and checking on tables at that moment, "Could we get some water for the table please?"

"You're worrying yourselves over nothing," the little lad said with yet another of the countless sighs he had already let out that day, "My organs are tougher than those of the average person, needed to be in my line of work. It wouldn't be very good for anyone if someone tried to poison me without me knowing it and it worked."

"That's not as reassuring as it could have been." Klaus observed, eyes darting between the others to determine that the feeling was very much mutual.

Before them was placed a bottle of water, and little plastic cups of an assortment of bright colours that did not match any real colour scheme - two greens, a purple, a yellow, and two different shades of blue - and Vanya quickly busied herself with pouring glasses of water for everyone, her own tea presently sitting only partially drunk and cooling rapidly.

It was not long before the final sibling, Luther, happened to make his presence known. He had glanced into the building quite by chance and noticed his family inside and made his way in. Following an inviting pat on the only scrap of empty space that remained on either side of the table, Spaceboy sat down, immediately squashing both Allison and Five, and lifting the table up so much with his knees that the others had to clasp at their various drinks - the coffee still guarded by Klaus - to keep them from spilling everywhere.

"Took you long enough, you great lug!" the Kraken stated, kicking the largest of the group's leg in a teasing sort of manner.

"I didn't know you were here." came the response from the giant figure, a somehow equally awkward and nonchalant shrug accompanying this.

"Last here has to order!" Klaus declared after a second or so had passed. He been eyeing the brightly coloured menu of doughnuts that was on display with much interest and it seemed right to mention the possibility of obtaining the foodstuffs once everyone was together.

"Shouldn't it be the oldest has to order?" Allison proposed, though this was met with a scowl from the eldest sibling, one that she met with a smile.

"My vote is for last here." Five stated, his scowl, already put on rather than earnest, faltering already.

Although there was a vote, Luther probably would have volunteered to take their orders anyway, it just seemed more democratic to put it to a vote instead. It was not all that long at all before they were all happily munching away on bright pastries - following a brief debate on whether a doughnut was considered a pastry at all, which was only ended when they had Vanya search it up, finding out that it is considered a pastry because to be considered a pastry there needed to be fat in the dough, which doughnuts have - and looking, by all rights, a perfectly average family of superheros having a pleasant afternoon together.

Even Five, who was feeling particularly irritable and not all that fond of the world had found himself in brighter spirits than he was previously. On the occasional instance he even ventured laughter, real and genuine laughter, not the sort that was put on because it was expected.  
Five Hargreeves was perfectly fine, thank you very much. He did not need to be alone anymore, and the decades of forced solitude only made the time he had to spend with his siblings, living and laughing along side him, far sweeter than any pastry ever could be. He was in a particularly pleasant mood, and he had missed the times where he could have uncomplicated moments of happiness, if he had ever really had the chance to experience them properly at all in the past, and definitely not in the future. But it was not the past, nor was it the future, but the here-and-now, and as far as he was concerned, the here-and-now was not so terrible at all.


	6. Spaceboy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luther hasn't given himself the chance to readapt to the Earth after being away, as requested by user happy, who I hope enjoys this because I got lost in articles about side effects of space travel to write this

It was Allison that had first noticed that something was amiss with Luther. It was the sound of shattering glass coming from the kitchen that drew her in, understandably concerned that someone had gotten hurt, or worse still, that there was someone with the intention of causing harm had gotten in. The latter was statistically more likely than the former was. But no, Spaceboy was crouched down awkwardly on the ground, trying his hardest to piece together the shattered remnants of what had once been a tea cup, what had been left of the chamomile tea having formed a little puddle on the ground.

"I didn't think the table was so low." was all that he offered as explanation.

It was Diego that had caught Luther sniffling. The taller of the two had tried to sneak off while they were exchanging friendly banter and The Kraken was not going to let him get away that easily. But the great lug was sniffling and coughing something fierce, fighting a losing battle against having this not be noticeable. As it often was with sicknesses, his head was pounding with the precise fury that would have come after being hit across the skull with a medium sized frying pan, and the way his face contorted with the pain suggest it must have been dreadful.

"I'm fine, Diego." came his only response when he realised there was still eyes upon him.

It was Klaus that had found Luther struggling with his coats. The astronaut would always don what seemed to be an excessive amount of layers at any given time, but it had reached an excess on that evening. Despite this, anyone could tell that he was not comfortable with all the layers than he had evidently deemed to be necessary. It seemed that he was wearing every single article of clothing with any warming capacity yet he was still shivering like a leaf in a brisk autumn wind.

"Were they always so heavy?" lamented the man wearing clothes that seemed heavier than the other's entire body mass.

It was Five who, upon hearing these concerns, decided it was high time they called a family meeting over this. If each an every sibling had noticed that something was wrong then there was absolutely something wrong, Five having come to the conclusion that his family was far from the most observant group of superpowered adults in the world.

"What was it like to see the earth while you were on the moon?" Five greeted the gigantic man when he happened to enter the room, sounding far more chummy than he would normally, a smile upon his face, patting at one of the empty chairs to invite him down. There was a second mug on the table, having been preemptively prepared, suggesting immediately this was not a spur of the moment question.

"It was sublime," came the response, the man thankfully taking the bait and sitting himself down, "Everything looked so small and insignificant from up there, watching the world and all the stars moving around it really did feel like I was just one little part of it all." he paused, resting his head on one hand, the other taking the tea that was being nudged closer and closer to him, "And the sunrises, I tell ya, there was nothing like it. Seeing everything glowing, it was like nothing I've ever seen before."

"And do you feel like you have adjusted to the Earth again?"

"What is this about, Five?" Luther asked, feeling just a tad suspicious over the specificity of the questioning.

"Can I not share small talk over a drink with my brother?"

"You don't do small talk." came the response, the quirk of his eyebrow audible in his tone.

The older of the two took a long sip of his coffee, mulling over the way he would breach the topic now the banter that he had been planning on using was tossed to the side. He had to be careful that he didn't immediately push his brother away with his concerns. Of this, the two were equally guilty but this did mean he knew how to go about it.

"You have been dropping and spilling things more than usual, based on what I have been told, and have been struggling to adapt to the forces of gravity, both signs of you having not fully adjusted to the Earth's atmosphere still, despite you having been back for more than the few weeks that it was expected to take," he began, pausing for a moment, but before Luther was able to speak up, he continued, "If that was not concerning enough, you have also been showing visible signs of being unwell."

Luther had gone to take a sip of his drink, but had fallen still, the warmth of the teacup brushing against his lip in a way that he found most agreeable given his current predicament of not feeling quite as warm as he would like. His core temperature had dropped during his time away, and he had not yet been able to bring it back up to a healthy level.

"Please," Five continued, gesturing to the drink, "Don't let me stop you."

"What is it?"

"Chamomile tea. I've noticed you have been drinking more and more of it lately. Wise. It serves as an immumobooster, which is precisely what a person would need when their immune system took enough of a shock that it would be weakened." Another smile, coming with the same sort of feigned cheer that a stage performer might adopt when the lights were on them. "As do citrus based fruits, which I have noticed the growing pile of peels of, which I could have passed off as a result of metabolic changes from your time away, and would have if the other factors did not all point to you being unwell."

"I'm fine." challenged the other, bringing his drink back down onto the table with a clink, remaining undrunk.

"And I'm not stuck looking perpetually like I should be in middle school."

Without replying, Spaceboy rose to his feet, ready to leave. The motion sent the chair skidding across the floor from the excess of force that he had not taken into account. The other was, of course, completely correct in each and every one of his observations and that bothered him far more than if it was exaggerated. He was Number One, he wasn't supposed to have anyone worry over him, he was supposed to be the one in charge. He was the Spaceboy, he was supposed to have been raised to go into space, he shouldn't be still experiencing issues from the one purpose he was supposed to have in life. If he was so durable, why could that not spill over into when his own body - what little of it was still his own - took it upon itself to fight against itself? His body still ached when he woke up, his very bones having shifted to accommodate the weightlessness, only to have everything forced back onto a frame that was not built for the extra bulk that it now contained. He wasn't sure if his joints would ever really feel normal again, if things would ever feel the correct weight again, not after spending so long in space. He wondered if he would be able to simply shake off what was supposed to be minor colds again, or if he would forever feel more unwell than he should. Luther wasn't sure if he wanted to know the answers to his wonderings, if he was being perfectly honest.

"If it was just me noticing it, I would not have mentioned it, but as it is, your whole family has been expressing their concerns for you."

"I'm tellin' you, you don't have anything to worry about." the man returned, though the rattling in his breath that could easily grow into a chest infection suggested otherwise.

"You don't have to deal with it alone, you know? We're here and we can help you, if you would just get that into your thick head and let us!"

"I told you, I'm fine," Luther stated stubbornly, "I don't need help."

It took a moment, but Five's coffee vanished completely and entirely, the empty mug brought down with an audible clatter. His teeth were gritted so hard it hurt. He didn't have the patience or willpower to deal with stubbornness, not from his brother, or from anyone at all for that matter.

"You have your family here to help you, willing to help you at the drop of a hat, Luther. Do you not think that every single g*d damned day I was away in the apocalyptic shell of the world that I was wishing that I could call on one of you for help? I missed my chance to ask for help and what did it get me? Shorts and enemies of the highest scale! Damn it, Luther, just ask someone for help when you have the chance! You don't know what the next day will bring! We could all be dead for all we know, so take your chance now and ask for help from your family!"

A prolonged silence followed this, Five having shared a little more of his own psyche in this than he had intended to. The smaller figure's breath was coming faster, more audible than it had been moments prior. His concern was understandable, of course, having seen the deceased remains of his family more than once made him hyper aware of the need to keep them alive at all cost. He'd sell his soul to whatever entity promised to keep them breathing the next day, had done this more often than he was proud of.

"Now, get to bed, mister, and don't even think about getting up until you're feeling better." Five ordered and, surprisingly enough, Luther went and did precisely that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Literal bibliography because I spent actual time researching this 
> 
> Boddé. T. (1982). 'Coping in Space: The Body's Answer to Zero Gravity'. BioScience. Oxford University Press
> 
> Onwuamaegbu. N. (2019). 'Now back on Earth, Washington native Anne McClain describes what it was like to live in space'. The Seattle Times


	7. Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Younger Klaus talks with some ghosts, or alternatively: what if the kids training eased into things, rather than being immediately traumatising?
> 
> (Comic canon specific. TW: referenced child death)

Graveyards were never the most pleasant of places to find oneself, not under the warm light of the day, and especially not in the darkness of the night. The silence that a cemetery carries when night drapes the world under a cloth of darkness has always been a silence that brings with it the weight of the world, of all the mourning that has taken place within the grand old gates that separated the worlds of life and death. But, of course, no good story ever takes place in a silent, empty graveyard, or so they so often said - whoever 'they' are, and why they have such an opinion on tales and cemeteries, it would be likely better to remain wondering as the 'they' sound like exceptionally unsavoury characters in this particular context - and so the graveyard was not so very empty of the living, and not quite as quiet as perhaps it should be for those trying to enjoy their eternal rest.  
Through the brisk night air, one half of what might seem like an oddly one sided conversation, to unknowledgeable onlookers at the very least, rang through the air, cutting through the quiet with the smoothness of a knife against cake.

"And then, and then! Then we were all allowed to get a scoop of ice cream afterwards!" came the enthusiastic - still enthusiastic, as the joy had not yet been stamped out with the other emotions following in quick succession - voice of the lad that sat, cross-legged and levitating a good foot off the ground over one of the many graves.

This lad was known by many names, 00.04, or simply Four, The Séance, and finally Klaus Hargreeves, and he looked as though he should have been at rest beneath the soil, skin that seemed closer to one dead for four days and features that were already sunken in - this was made no less unsettling to perceive over his lifetime, as he certainly was not a contender for the healthy living monthly award - even if he was still as alive as he ever could be. Upon the palms of his hands, he had Sharpied a now slightly smudged HELLO/GOODBYE, having not yet committed to the tattoos.

"I've ne'er been permitted to sample the ice'd cream." was the response to this, the words only heard by the lad that was sitting across from the little girl, a note of wistfulness creeping into her tone, which sounded wonderfully dramatic given the echoey quality of her voice.

The little girl in question was young Catherine Haynes, a wee lass who had been no older than seven when her young life had been snatched away prematurely following an unpleasant interaction with a visitor to her family's manor house. Not that there was ever a pleasant time for a poor, innocent child to be murdered, but the whole scenario was unpleasant, little Cathy having discovered that the man attempting to woo her eldest sister had wandering eyes and straying hands, and so had done away with the poor scrap with the excuse that she'd tripped and fallen down the stairs, he being far too rich to raise a scandal over. If she had known she was to die that night, she would have changed out of her nightdress and into something a little prettier to spend eternity in.

"I could probably let you try next time!" offered the slightly more living of the pair, distractedly shaking his head in an attempt to flick the stray hairs from his face and back into the chestnut fringe that it had freed itself from.

"However so?" she asked, tilting her head to the side in the exaggerated way that was only possibly from one that had previously had the bones and tendons that would ordinarily protest this be snapped horribly. Thankfully the disconcerting lolling of her head was something that her breathing companion was growing more accustomed to.

"If I let you possess me next time you'll be able to try some too!" The Séance suggested, "I've been getting better and better with maintaining it so I'm sure you'll be able to try soon!"

"How marvelous!"

"May I try as well?" a voice from behind the two asked. The voice was slightly gargled, as if being spoken from under the water.

This was not completely incorrect, as the speaker, a little mite of ten that had wandered in too deep into the lake by his property and had not been seen breathing since, who had been named John Barrow. With one strap of his suspenders forever slipped off his shoulder, and his hair further darkened by water, the child could have looked deceptively alive had it not been for the water that never did dry. There had been some good that had come from his accidental death, as horrible as it was to think, as ever since they found him there they improved the safety of the area and there had never been a child lost there since.

"As long as there's still enough left for me," Klaus replied, sounding as if he was very much contemplating the matter, "I was the one that earned it after all!"

"Oh please let him," Cathy pleaded, "It's been ever so long since any of us has been able to taste anything at all, it would mean ever so much to him, and me, if you would!"

"Alright, alright," came the response from the only living member of the little group, "You can both try then! But! I get to pick the flavour!"

Off to the side stood the imposing figure of The Monocle, or rather, Reginald Hargreeves, watching the interaction that he could not fully see with an intensity that did not suggest he was simply a wary father wanting to ensure the safety of his child. No, he was scribbling down notes with an impressive speed given the legibility that each and every word managed to perfectly maintain. What it was that he was writing was for himself and himself only, and would be kept away from the praying hands of the children that unfortunately shared the same place as he did. The notes would, however, determine how intense the next training session would be.


	8. Exhaused

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klaus wants to sleep, but he just can't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: blood and mention of injuries, self destructive behaviour and tendencies, and also alcohol use/abuse.  
> Little reference to the end of season two, so beware of possible spoilers

It was the third time in less than an hour that he stood there by the mirror, pinching at his eyelids and blinding the forced-open eyes with a light. It felt like there was something squirming around, a worm most likely, right underneath his bottom eyelid and that was what it was that was setting it to twitch so frantically and irrationally. He didn't think, or rather didn't want to think, that the real reason was not that there was an annelid squirming away against his eye but instead it was because he was so overtired that it was a marvel that he didn't double right over there and then.  
The prolonged silence that was filling the air was becoming increasingly less and less quiet until, all of a sudden, everything fell silent as a grave once more.  
Klaus' breath was hitching painfully in his chest, but he couldn't feel it. The eye that was providing him such concern all of a few heartbeats ago was quickly forced shut by a sluggish stream of blood, but he couldn't feel it. A distracted hand brushed his forehead to dislodge whatever may have found itself embedded there, and he felt nothing.  
In what was left of the mirror, he could see that he was a pitiful sight to behold, standing among the remains of what was once a mirror, his forehead bleeding from smashing the glass with his head, but still he could not feel anything.  
No, he couldn't feel anything at all.  
Oh, he wished he couldn't feel anything at all. 

Not thinking to clean the wounds that wept a crimson sea across his features, he staggered to the table, his tattooed hands hitting it hard as he almost lost his balance, but he couldn't feel the jolt of pain that raced up his arms when he did so. Unceremoniously flopping himself down into the chair, the dressing-gown clad Klaus Hargreeves let out a grunt. One hand went to work rubbing his eyes, equally trying to chase away the tiredness that was trying to force them shut and also to clear the blood that was working against him. his other hand reaching out blindly for the bottle on the table. Cabernet Sauvignon, for a special celebration. Well, every single g*d damned day was a celebration for him, so why not drink the whole thing?  
Maybe he'll even be able to knock himself out with it hard enough to get some sleep for a few hours. 

How long had it been since he slept? Surely it must be getting closer to day five with every minute that passed. Or had it already passed? Without sleep in between, days seemed to blend into one big mass with no determinable beginnings or endings.  
He'd love to sleep, oh how he'd love to sleep, but sleeping was worse than the waking world.  
At least when he was awake the whole world was there to distract him from things that he did not want to see, but when he closed his eyes everything was cut off abruptly. Well, almost everything. The forsaken wraiths, angry poltergeists, pesky phantoms, mournful spectres, vengeful ghosts, irritable spirits, and all the other lost souls that he was cursed to bare witness to were never shut out. When his options were to be left with the dead or to just keep going, the self destruction seemed to be the preferable of the two options so kindly provided. 

For a moment, he wondered if he was hallucinating things but then again, there wasn't any real way of telling. Was it the drink that made the world sway, or was it the fact he had headbutted a wall mirror with the force of a charging bull? Was the movement out of the corner of his eye a hallucination, or a ghost, or something different altogether? 

Was it so much to ask for a moment of piece?

He was so tired. Each bone seemed to weigh a tonne, every movement was like trying to swim through a sea of thick molasses, and even the moving of the bottle between the table and his mouth and back again - and back again to his lips, a man lost in the desert, salvation found at the bottom of a bottle, and I thankee sai - seemed to take everything that he was.  
When he was still there, Ben had often tried to chase away the wandering dead so that the man could get a few hours of sleep here and there, but now that the bloody martyr was gone, there was nobody but him left to try and help himself. But, as it so often was, his way of helping himself was just another running leap down the path of total self destruction. Not that it really mattered anyway, the dead wouldn't keep him - he'd been told to his face that the land of the dead just simply didn't want him - and even if the living didn't seem to have a more favourable opinion of him, it seemed like he was stuck there for better or for worse. 

Yet another wave of exhaustion hit him like a wave, trying to drag him out into the ocean where he'd be forced to swim or drown, but when he shook his head to try and clear it, it hurt. Hurt and hurt bad. Frantically clasping for the bottle, he found it horribly empty. Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink.  
He could have screamed if he wanted to, but he wouldn't have been able to hear himself over the cacophony of the dead and damned.  
He could have screamed if he wanted to, but nobody would listen to him anyway.


	9. Home Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klaus wears wounds of the war not just on his soul, but on his flesh, as requested by the wonderful and kind Des98, who I hope appreciated this because I read through a couple impressively long articles and studies about this

"Well, I'll be damned," was what Klaus said breaking the comfortable silence that had filled the room. He'd managed to drag his way into the living room, which had been the most quiet and empty room in the whole building at the time, burying himself under a pile of blankets, and made himself as comfortable as he could, "Didn't know it'd be like that." He let out a dry, humorless laugh as he emerged from the makeshift nest that he had created for himself to escape from the world. The world that he had only returned to a good few hours ago at the very latest.  
One or two of the others, who had gradually trickled in as Klaus shifted between napping and trying to collect himself, who were currently in the room looked over to him, though they remained silent. Of course, they hadn't realised that, as far as he was concerned, he had been away for almost a year and was forced to experience the traumatising horrors that war held, rather they were under the impression that he was hungover from some night out, an explanation for the glassiness of his eyes when he glanced about the room as he resurfaced.  
"I didn't think that the whole, you know," he paused, partially rambling to himself to try and understand it - it often was easier to understand things when spoken aloud, even if there was nobody else in the area - and partially with the hopes that he could make it clear that things were not all hunky-dory for the man, "Ghost thing would extend to phantom limbs too."

"What are you talking about?" came Diego's response, the vigilante's attention not quite steady upon his brother, not particularly invested in starting up a conversation on the matter.

"Nobody here has a missing limb to experience a phantom limb." added Five, who had not yet looked up from the book that he was reading, sounding just a little bit like he thought he knew everything about everyone and everything. Often times this was a valid assumption on his behalf, so the arrogance was usually excusable.

"Oh, shit," Klaus exclaimed, letting out a bit of a shaky laugh, more so a nervous response than any real expression of joy, "Didn't I tell you?" There had been no time for him to tell them, having only been home for long enough to make himself almost comfortable.  
The Séance shuffled about, letting out a weary grunt as he hauled himself into a sitting position, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. He didn't think that he'd be nervous, though that was more so because he had gotten accustomed to being perceived during his albeit clumsy recovery. There had not been much time for him to come to terms with the loss of his leg, given that the same moment he lost the love of his life, and was in shock during the time he was able to give himself before he returned to his correct time and place, but sitting there under the cautiously curious gaze of his family, the sheer magnitude of it was beginning to settle down upon his shoulders.  
Thankfully he had not lost all movement, the development of prosthesis having introduced a hinged joint during the 1960s, making it a little easier to go about things. But the inclusion of a knee joint could only go so far with the reprogramming that was needed mentally.  
"Don't freak out or anything, guys."

With a similar theatrical flourish of a magician doing a grand reveal for some particularly elaborate trick - specifically an elaborate trick as there is a certain shape of theatricism that came with grand reveals once the audience has been thoroughly tricked - he unraveled himself from the blankets that he was burying himself under.

The following silence was thick, heavy in the air and managing to share a similar consistency to a soup that had been left to cool then thrice reheated.

"Don't all rush me at once!" exclaimed Klaus in an attempt to break the silence before it became all consuming, though the attempt at humour fell far flatter than he would have liked it to.

"Klaus," The Kraken began, his voice oddly hushed, "The hell happened, man?"

"Pretty, isn't it?" came the not-quite-sarcastic reply, "Not many of the lads were able to get one, but they needed to test the sort of joint on someone, and I went 'kaboom' at the right time." This cryptic answer did not give away all that much, though the visible edges of the dogtags around his neck that he clasped at when he spoke seemed to add another layer to the strangeness.

"Does it hurt?" the knife wielding man asked, earnest sympathy finding a home in each and every syllable that he uttered.

"More than I'd like," he replied, "It's a pain in the arse to try and move and," he paused, a prolonged silence following that nobody felt that they could break, "I can still feel it sometimes, like it was still there. Plus, oh lucky me, it turns out I can still see it even when its not there anymore." His voice cracked, his attempt at sounding unfazed by it all falling apart with the ease of a ball of sand in a fist.

"What did you d-" Five begun, though he was quickly silenced by a wave of a hand and glance from Diego, who shot the very young looking old man a disapproving glare. Whatever accusations and possible timeline discrepancies he had intended to discuss could wait until the time was right, and time was absolutely not right to press the visibly emotionally fragile man to discuss what had brought him to such a state.

"We're here for you, bro," Diego said when he was sure he wasn't going to have to stop Five again, "If you need help, just shout and we, all of us," a pause as he looked at the only few siblings in the room, rightly assuming that the others would also agree, "Will help, alright?"

The faintest ghost of a smile crossed Klaus' features, though for once this was a ghost that everybody but The Séance could see."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little bibliography, in case anyone wanted further reading
> 
> Narang. I. C., Mathur. B. P., Signh. P., Jape. V. S. (1984). 'Functional capabilities of lower limb amputees' Prosthetics and Orthotics International, 1984, 8, 43-51
> 
> Rawlinson. C. (2016). '100 years of prosthesis: How war amputees have driven design innovation'. ABC News


	10. La Viole Blanche

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The apocalypse that was

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: major character death, referenced injuries, profanities, and general unpleasantness

_"Brothers, sisters, I am an atomic bomb."_

The very air around them seemed to sting and hum like a swarm of angry wasps, and yet the voice from the woman on the stage cut through it all like a knife, calm and sounding more sure of herself than she had ever been in her whole life. Had even one of the siblings been able to think a coherent thought, it would have been easy to mistake her voice for a thought.  
But there was no mistaking the ice in her tone that was horribly capable of freezing all those who had the misfortune of having the warning directed to them.

"How you going, Klaus?" shouted Luther, the blood of the man - Was he Harold, or was he Leonard? Did it even really matter anymore? - that he had killed staining his hands horribly, the eye that he had snatched out in a bout of rage that quite completely horrified him. He could only hope that he lived long enough for the guilt to settle. Perhaps, he hoped, the guilt would settle faster if the ghastly wound that took up most of his thigh healed up nicely, and the feeling in his leg would return properly again.

"The arsehole never listened to me when he was alive," came the response, his voice almost completely lost in the music, beautiful but deadly, "But somehow he's even more stubborn dead." With the force of his efforts to try and channel their father, Klaus' jaw was clenched so hard it ached, a stream of blood and what appeared, unfortunately, to be some sort of ectoplasm dripped from his nose in an unpleasant stream.

Each and every word that Allison tried to vocalise was snatched away from her, and each and every word served as yet another weapon against her. Countless little wounds littered for form, some trying desperately to clot, others still bubbling blood, each rumor she tried to propose written upon her skin in a language decipherable only to the woman writing it upon her. But still, against her own safety, she still tried because the safety of the wider world was more important than that of the individual.

Of all of them, it was Diego that was faring the worst. He had rushed the stage and wound up with a broken leg and undoubtedly at least two broken ribs on top of all the bruising and the bleeding, but still he dragged himself towards the stage, one eye glued shut with his own blood.  
"Vanya!" he attempted to bellow over the din, "You can still stop this! You don't want to hurt us, you wanted to hurt dad, and that's fair! He was a bastard to all of us! We weren't able to see him hurting you because we were too busy hurting too!" There was a part of him, small but lingering from when they were younger and full of aspirations, that hoped he could appeal to the human side of her.

"I had spent so long waiting, hoping that you would come to one of my concerts," came the musing from the woman on the stage, or rather floating half a metre above the stage, "Pogo came to every one of them," she continued, "Mother too, when she was able to, but now," she paused, the whimsy in her voice shifting to anger faster than one could properly register, "And now, when you're finally here, not one of you could be decent enough to be quiet for one minute and actually listen to me play!"  
The horrible sound waves that rang out beneath the beautiful music that came from each and every drawing and twitching of the bow in the hands of The White Violin had the painful effect of causing each and every one of the siblings to drop to their knees, hands to their ears to try and combat the assaulting sounds. This, as anyone would expect, did not help any one of their situations, not one little bit.

If the pains of their various injuries had been bad, then the pain of the sound waves was tenfold more horrible than anything they had expected to experience.

"Is it so fucking hard to just listen for once in you g*d damned lives?" screamed the monochromatic beast that had once been Vanya Hargreeves, her voice throwing the others back into the far wall, a sonic blast, "Is it so hard to see that I am extraordinary too? I am! I'm more extraordinary than any of you, and even now you refuse to look at me, to watch me, to see that I am here too!"

The very foundations of the music hall shook, groaning and creaking in a way that anyone who could hear - not that any of them could hear over the ringings in their ears - would have a particular sort of fear instilled into their hears. Not only was the very structures of the building threatening to give way, so too was the very fabric of existence. All over the city, people were collapsing and shaking with migraines worse than they had ever had the misfortune of experiencing, and unlike what was left of The Umbrella Academy, they hadn't the foggiest as to why it was they were suffering in such a way.

"Look at me!" The White Violin howled, the air whipping around like a tornado in the room bursting through the windows and spreading into the rest of the world, the air itself cutting just as sharp, if not sharper than the glass that had now joined it, the growing lacerations upon the slumped down ground.  
"Look at me!" The roof began to collapse in on itself all at once, crumbling around them silently, all sounds stolen by the banshee that glowed in the growing darkness, much the same destruction taking place all about the city, the very world itself toppling over like dominoes.  
"All of you! Look at me, now! Won't you look at me now that I am the only person left to look at in this whole horrid world?"

And with that, the world was ended in a flurry of violin music, which seemed to fill the whole world and, for a moment, the whole world listened to the not so ordinarily Number Seven.


	11. Horror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben's reflections following the last successful mission he had alive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: discussions of death

His skin crawled horribly, and it seemed that each and every part of his body seemed to ache something fierce. As he so often found himself going, Ben Hargreeves found himself resting his hand upon his solar plexus, wondering just how much of what he could feel was himself.  
Beneath his skin, he could feel something that wasn't him, a moving and shifting of the eldritch other dimensional beasts that resided in equal parts within him and within their own world. It made him feel horribly nauseous, if he had to be honest with himself.  
It frightened him dearly, the fact that there was something within him that was very much not a part of himself that was a part of him still.

Would there be a time when there was less of him and more of them?  
Would there be a day there was nothing at all left of him?

Ben could not recall a day that had gone by without the thick smell of blood in his nose, a ghostly reminder of all those that he killed before their time on earth was even close to over.  
More than once he had considered asking Klaus if any of those the horrors inside him - the horrors, not him, never him, he didn't want this - had killed remained, tethered to him as the cause of their demise. As often as he had considered asking this, he decided against it as he truly did not want to know the answer. Whether it was that he was haunted or not, he could not say with any certainty which frightened him more.  
The finality of death, or the possibility that there was more beyond this.

He never said it aloud, and even tried to avoid thinking about it, but he knew that he would die. Most, he assumed, would imagine their death as something that would eventually come when they were old and grey, but there was a part of him that knew he would never get such a privilege. The rewards of old age were a dream, but as dreams often were, he knew in the waking world it would never be a possibility.  
Each and every time he was sent out on a mission, forced to spend hours upon hours of training, he could not help but wonder if the horrors would take their complete control, destroying him and snuffing out the light of their vessel with the same indiscriminate brutality that he had still not quite gotten control over.

Even with all the reluctance he felt about using his powers, he never did outright refuse to, placing his trust on those around him to keep himself safe against what wasn't quite himself, but was, for better or for worse, a part of him all the same.

Why was it that he was the only one that needed to be kept safe from his powers? His siblings all seemed to be thriving and manifesting their powers - there was a part of him that wanted to hope that the reason Five had never come back was because he had progressed beyond needing them - but he was there needing to make sure he didn't lose control and end in everyone including himself dead. Why was it that he was the only one doubled over in pain after even the most simplistic and run-of-the-mill missions? Barely a night had gone by where he had not woken up in pain, but he could suppose that was just how it was for him, as nobody had told him otherwise.

The nausea was, thankfully, fading enough for his breath to stop catching in his throat quite so unpleasantly, though it was far from permitting him a full intake of air in a single breath. For a moment even, he regretted turning down the customary scoop of ice cream after the that afternoon's mission. His hunger had wholly vanished for longer than usual then, but he had far too many aches and pains to deal with at the time to think about it, and so, it was merely one of many inconveniences that he had long since had to come to terms with and accept as being part of his life.

A small, weary sigh slipped through his lips, and he rubbed his eyes to chase away anything that he did not want to think about and, for a heartbeat or so, when he brought his hand back down, he could have sworn it was dyed a horrid red. "Come out, damned spot! Out, I command you! One, two. OK, it’s time to do it now.—Hell is murky!—Nonsense, my lord, nonsense! You are a soldier, and yet you are afraid?" or so it had been spoken in the Bard's Scottish Play so many years ago, yet described him so well it could have almost brought a tear to his eye, if he dared to let it.

Ben had spent too long alone already, the others, he near hoped, would be getting worried about him. Swallowing back the mortal fear that sat beneath his skin alongside the beast, he brought his domino mask up to his face, and pain that remained glimmering behind his eyes hidden as if it was never there in the first place.  
No longer a wee frightened lad, but a superhero.  
No longer Ben Hargreeves, but The Horror.

Letting a smile that he could not believe form upon his lips, and as deep a breath as he could muster cycle through for a moment, he turned and made his way back to rejoin the rest of his siblings where they were running about, enjoying the rare moment they had out of their father's gaze.  
Ben just had to hope that none of them noticed how heavily he limped as he moved.


	12. A Conversation With The Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben is comfortable enough to discuss personal matters with his family, even if working out one's sexuality is even more of a task when no longer alive, as requested by George_washingtons_ass, which is a username that amused me muchly so I very much hope they enjoy

At first, Klaus had struggled to manifest Ben in the world of the living longer than a matter of seconds, but before too long, and after a decent enough amount of practice - if the exploration of their powers ended with Ben's death, it seemed only fitting that it was for Ben that similar such explorations were able to resume - it was almost as if he had never been gone at all. Sure, it was awkward in the beginning, clumsy apologies, last words that were never able to be said filling the air but, before long, things were able to seem as normal as it could be for a family of superhero siblings ever had the hope to be.

At that particular moment, the ghost was perched upon the kitchen counter, his hands as close to being wrapped around the cup of tea that Vanya had made for herself, very much enjoying the odd half-sensations that his not-quite corporeal body could experience, an odd replacement for the usual sort of warmth that life should have brought. The room was filled with a pleasant, comfortable buzzing of life, from the fluttering of the book Vanya was reading to Klaus' faint humming along with the radio despite the radio being a room over from them at that time. It felt safe, it felt simple, and most of all, it felt real and there was something about that which none of them would want to give up for the world.

But, despite everything, there was an anxiety rolling about in the mind of The Horror. Before he died, he would have assumed that the dead could not possibly grow or change from the state they had been in when they died, and this was a perfectly reasonable assumption if ever there was one, and yet here he was, both growing and changing, as far as he was concerned. Given that he, more than a dozen years dead, could be concerned about anything at all suggests that his previous assumptions had been incorrect all along.  
The pondering of the permanence of a ghostly state of being was more procrastination for the spirit than anything, and he knew this. He also knew that he was in good company and didn't need to get himself into such a flap. But still he could feel the harsh claws of fear tearing at his throat and snatching away his words, there being no breath that it could take with it.

"Hey, guys?" Ben finally began, mustering up just enough courage to be able speak. If he was able to start, and starting was always the hardest if the 'they' that so often was said to say things had anything to say about it, then he supposed he would simply have to be able to keep going. He'd put this off more than he'd like to admit, and he knew better than anyone that there was no time like the present to do things, lest that be the last moment there was to do anything at all.

The White Violin looked up from the pages she had been reading, letting out an inquisitive sort of chirp, The Séance had said something - the specific something was "What's shakin' Bendigo?" - but the sounds were quite successfully smothered by a roaring in his ears that he could have mistaken for racing blood had he not known better. Had his hands not been thoroughly clasped, they would have most certainly been shaking like a leave in a wild storm. His siblings were not oblivious to his discomfort, but they were kind enough to not acknowledge it, not wanting to further his distress.

"What would you say if I was, you know," he paused, part of him genuinely surprised by the struggle he was having to form words, or more specifically forming the right words, which was not something that should be such an ordeal to do, "Less straight than I once thought...? I've just been thinking, and, well, I mean, I don't think I am...?"  
While he was sure that he was in a safe environment, the part of him that was telling him to test the waters was louder than the part that was telling him to be straight forward and get it out into the open.

"Well," Vanya begun, pausing only because of the sheer volume that came from Klaus' shifting from lazy reclining - valid, given that he was exhausting himself more than he was willing to admit keeping Ben visible to the others - to an upright sitting sort of position, "Then, and I'm talking for both of us," a beat passed where she locked eyes with her living sibling for permission to do so, a nod granting this, "We would have to say that we are honoured that you were willing to tell us something so personal, and would remind you that we love you for who you are, and that you aren't alone." She might not have gotten a mighty speech, or any speech at all when she was coming to terms with the matters of her own sexuality, but she would be damned if her brother didn't get all the love and reassurance that he needed.

"And," continued Klaus, exhausting dragging his words back just a little, "Make sure that you knew that you don't have to lock yourself into any, like, ridged terms or anything until you find the sort of proverbial coat that fits and fits you as the you that is you." Although he might not have been the most coherent in his addition, it was undeniable that it brought a smile to the face of the one that it was intended, and that was what mattered in the end.

Ghosts, it turned out, could shed tears that were happy as well as the sort that came from torment and agony, a fact that Ben had the good fortune of being able to learn when he had to blink away the few tears that began to bud in the corner of his eyes.  
"Thank you," said he, his voice almost lost, a lightness shaping his disposition.


	13. Told You So

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allison and Clara are more similar than they'd like to be 
> 
> This is comic specific, but g*d I'm so overtired I genuinely can't tell if any part of this makes sense because I entered overtired-rambling-mode

Time, as it had the habit of doing, had managed to quite successfully slip away from Allison Hargreeves, and so by the time she returned to her morning coffee, she was met with the unfortunate circumstance of the liquid being horribly room temperatured. She pouted briefly, though before she let her disappointment grow too far, she decided that simply would not do.  
"I heard a rumour this coffee was still as fresh as when I made it."  
Content with the fact the mug had grown suddenly warm once more, she brought the cup up to her lips so she could enjoy her drink.

"I don't believe a word you're saying."

And with that, Allison's drink was once more a horribly tepid temperature, which made her gag a little with surprise.

"Damn it, Clara," The Rumor hissed, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, "That was a dirty trick."

The other woman, not exactly a stranger, but not the most familiar person in the world, sauntered her way over to the table where the purple haired lady sat, fuming over her cup. Dropping herself into an unoccupied chair, Allison could see the amusement glittering in her eyes, a specific sort of deviousness that she recognised in herself, which bothered her more than any minor inconveniences the morning had brought already.

"I thought it was funny." came the Sparrow's response, "So it was. Simple as that." This was not exactly malicious, though nothing she had done at that particular moment was intended to be anything more than a mere prank. "And besides," she continued, "Did you not do almost exactly the same thing to me the other day?"

"It wasn't a coffee," came Allison's response, a smile daring to tug itself across her face at the memory, "So it isn't the same thing at all." 

"Oh yes, so my sandwich, which I had locked away, just happened to vanish?"

"Funny how that happens, somebody just so happened to tell me a particular rumour that it was mine and, believe it or not, it was!" Of course, she had to pick her words carefully to dance around the specifics of her power so she didn't do anything on accident or anything silly like that.

"Oh, I would believe it." Clara replied, likewise having to navigate her phrasing around per abilities, resting her head on one hand. The other hand was busy catching a yawn that dared to try and escape. "There any more of that coffee left?" she asked, nodding towards the forsaken cup.

"I heard a rumour there was enough for at least one more cup, and that it was fresh enough for my cup to still be warm."

"Cheers." the longer haired woman returned, hauling herself to her feet once more with the particular sort of sluggish jerkiness that was only possible when a person was overtired and trying to ignore some sort of ache or pain that there wasn't time to deal with.

"I don't think there'd be enough of the cookies for both of us though." Allison called out to the retreating woman, very much hoping this was enough of a hint for her to challenge.

The reply of, "I don't believe that." was only faintly audible in the other room, but it didn't matter if anyone other than herself heard her challenge the very fabric of cookie-based reality.

One could assume that two people with the ability to manipulate and challenge reality at a whim would be a perfect team, but, of course, the assumptions of people working together would rarely ring true, as people that are too similar would see themselves in the other, and so would kick against each other. Neither Allison nor Clara would willingly admit that they saw themself in the other, but rather amusingly their protestations about the matter was practically word for word - thankfully nobody who had heard either of their complaints would have any need to echo it to the others who might have heard the other - which, unfortunately for them, showed that they were more alike than they were different. In a somewhat literal sense.  
If there was any reason to, it was not beyond belief to imagine that Clara and Allison would tear the fabric of reality apart at the very seams if they needed to. Thankfully, however, neither of them had any particular reason for either of them to start making any really significant tears in said reality fabric, not without patching it up again later at the very least.

Perhaps the potent potential of the pair was the reason they had been kept apart in different academies until there was a reason for them to meet was a wise decision.  
G*d forbid they meet during a time of typical teen-angst and decide to destroy the world themselves because they were simply bored.

By the time anybody else had emerged from where they slept - yet another similarity between the two, it seems, was that they were both early risers - the two were a cop of coffee and a plate of cookies down and caught up in a conversation that, for once, was completely and blissfully free of any real weight or importance. There was rarely time for superheros to enjoy time to just be people, but when the sunlight had only just begun to trickle in properly through the window, there was nothing else to do but be human.

Of course, if anybody happened to ask about how they spent their morning, neither would admit to having enjoyed time in the other's company, but that did not mean it was without a deeper, personal meaning for the two that could, if they wanted to, make anyone they wanted love them, to spend time making genuine connections with those outside of their immediate families.  
There was a power in being human when the whole world wanted you to be something more.

Vanya, later that day, was informed that she was definitely the least likeable of the two women in her family, which was not explained or even given any context for this conclusion.


	14. Welcome Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five returns to the academy, much to Reginald's disapproval, as requested by Stardust, who I hope enjoyed this because it was a fun concept to consider

The silence that filled the room was so thick it would be easy to imagine that it could be cut with a knife, but not nearly as easily as, say, butter or anything traditionally easy to cut. It was not the sort of silence that one would liken to a room of almost seventeen year olds, but there wasn't anybody who would believe that they were just any group of teenagers, as most teenagers typically did not have superpowers.  
Once there had been a time where there was seven of them, six with superhuman abilities and one that was not, but now the number had dwindled to just five. One not long since dead, one vanished off to goodness only knew where.  
The five that remained, and of course the man they were expected to call their father, sat about the dinner table in the same uncomfortable silence that each and every night before it had brought with equal measure.

There was nothing particularly significant about this night, nothing to set it apart from the countless others that had come before it, but nights where nothing happens rarely made for particularly interesting tales, and so it was not all that long before the silence was eventually broken.

One moment there was six in the room, the next there was seven.

In a flash, the empty space was filled with the shape of a disheveled, visibly malnourished lad in a far more tatted version of the uniform the others wore. His breath was coming hard and fast, the frantic sound of it quickly broke the silence, and it was clear for all to see that he was rapidly blinking back tears. It was a marvel that, based on how haphazardously he was wobbling on his feet, that he did not topple right over. His eyes were wide, like those of a frightened deer, and they danced about the room as if he did not believe it to be real.

"Quite done with your little temper tantrum are we, Number Five?" asked the man at the head of the table, seemingly not even caring enough to look up from his drink, "Clean yourself up, you are tracking filth everywhere." The Monocle demanded, none of this appearing even remotely concerned about the literal post-apocalyptic muck that it was covering the lad that he dismissed to the other room. Despite everything that had happened since he left, Five still dashed off and out of the room. "As for the rest of you," he continued, not unaware of the small flinch that most of them exhibited, "You can see your brother once you are dismissed for the night."

And with that, the silence returned, more stifling than it was mere moments before.

It was to nobody present's surprise that it was Reginald Hargreeves himself that off and vanished after the newly returned child, instructing the others to remain seated until he returned to dismiss them. If he had been even remotely surprised by the lad's return, it did not show upon his face, nor did it carry in his disposition. He always did manage to have an uncanny way of seeming to know what was coming before anyone else did.

"So," said he, caring not that his arrival caused the feeble creature to jump like a frightened gazelle, "I trust you shan't be running off again." This did not have the weight of a question, rather an observation, but he nonetheless waited for a response.

"No, sir." came Five's response, this having been the first thing he had said to another living being in a good few years.

"And it ends?" the man asked cryptically, on the off chance that any of the others happened to be eavesdropping on them, though he was not quite so vague as to make sure he was still understood.

This was met with a nod, The Boy still standing there in the same, now ill-fitting clothes that he had been in on the day he stormed off. There was a particular faraway gaze in his eyes, the horrors that he had seen glimmering just beneath the surface.

"And were you able to determine the cause?"

"No, sir." the lad once more replied.

"Then why did you come back?" Reginald asked, "The least you could do to make up for your absence was to provide us information, and yet you could not even do that?"

"I tried!" Five exclaimed weakly, his voice wavering just a little as the years he spent alone, trying to understand the hellscape he was trapped in was being treated as a waste of time, "I-"

"I don't want to hear it, Number Five. You failed, simple as that, there is no places for excuses, only for success. Without you, one of your brothers was killed, and you could not bring back with you a way to prevent the same fate befalling the others? Befalling the very world as it is now known?"

"Dad, stop!" came a voice from the doorway, the speaker, Diego, seemed to regret letting his presence be known when the attention was shifted to him, the displeasure evident. Despite this, he did not back down with his protest. "It's not his fault. He's back now, isn't that enough?" If anyone happened to listen to not only the words but also the way he said it, they would have noticed the slight drag in his words, a subtle attempt at combating the stutter that was trying its hardest to return to his voice.

"No, Number Two, it is not enough." came the father's response, "Failure is not an option when the world itself is at stake."  
It was not uncommon that the fate of the world was used as leverage but there was something in the sheer gravitas in his voice suggested this was more than a mere hypothetical.  
"But, now that you are here," the man continued, no longer pretending to be unaware of the others trying to hide behind the door to listen in, "Studies and training will carry on at an increased rate. The fate of the world is at stake!"


	15. An Ordinary Haunting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben was never given the chance to live, and was left to watch on from the sidelines, as requested by the delightful Wanda_maximoff_is_a_queen!

"I don't think you're old enough to come in here with me, Benny-boy, you'll have to wait outside."

This was not the first time Klaus had said this, nor would it be the last, and it managed to remain exactly as unfunny this time as it had every time other time he had said it. There was never anything malicious intended by this, of course, but with his ghostly brother stuck as an eternal just-sixteen year old that was accidently-on-purpose tethered to him, Klaus could not help but make the occasional joke at the other's expense. Humour often did make the darker thoughts softer when the situation called for it, and the situation did call for it more often than not.

"And where would I go?" came the response from Ben Hargreeves, looking just the same as he did when he died nearing on fifteen years ago, his arms folded in a way that seemed equally a show of disapproval and a protective sort of gesture, "If you haven't forgotten," a subtle dig at the living man's self destructive lifestyle that he had no choice but to bare witness to with no way to intervene, "It's not like I can go anywhere else."  
Perhaps if Klaus had let his powers grow a little more then the lad would have had more of a chance to roam about the earth that he could not quite connect to anymore, but unfortunately with each foolish decision that was made, the less of a chance for free reign was made possible.

"Well, I'm sure they'll have something you could have," Klaus pondered, this being more hypothetical than literal as there was no way a dead man could drink, "Would you like a nice appley juice?"

"Shut up."

"Such language!" exclaimed The Séance, his hand daintily fluttering to chest in a way that seemed more fitting for an old timey melodrama, "As your older brother, I have to take care of my dearest younger brother now, don't I?"

"We are the same age." protested The Horror, who was not technically incorrect with this, but given the fact he was unable to keep aging after his death - one of the problems with being a ghost, Ben had noticed and never been able to forget, was the horrible permanence of his state of being in a world that was made to be wonderfully impermanent and fluid, not rigidly stuck in one eternal state - he was also not completely correct in his assumption.

"I wear it better, kiddly-wink."

One issue with Klaus' power was that he was very used to seeing things that nobody else could, and because he could see it, he could also interact with them. This was not an issue on the more personal level, but unfortunately for anyone who happened to see him they would be seeing a man in brightly coloured attire talking animatedly to the empty air, gesticulating wildly and seemingly having one half of a full conversation. Any negative attention he attracted was usually able to wash right over him, while the positive would be absorbed, a happy if not slightly self absorbed life if ever there was one.

"Is that what you call it?" was the reply to this, amusement flittering in his voice in a way that made him seem almost alive, quite literally a ghost of his former self.

"And what would you call it?" he asked, deciding that he had been lurking out on the street for a little bit too long, and had taken this as a cue to saunter his way into the dingy little pub he had been eyeing curiously.

"I'd call it being stupid, that's what."

This was met with an almost barking laugh as Klaus had not bothered to try and hide his possibly slightly misplaced amusement. Even if he did let the idea of Ben's comment being more than a joke settle for a moment, he actively refused to let it go to heart. Of course his brother's opinion of him mattered to him, more so than he would have liked to admit even, but he was so far down his narcissistic spiral of both self preservation and self destruction that the wisdom of the dead would do little to help.

"It's not a joke, Klaus," continued the spirit, "I didn't get to be an adult, and now I'm stuck watching you waste your adulthood. That's stupid and I know you can see it."

"Too bad I can't hear a word you're saying, Benedict, because I'm sure it was absolutely fascinating." Both of them knew that the sort of hearing Klaus had with the dead was different to ordinary sounds, as the ghostly voices came on a different plane so it wasn't heard in the same, or rather correct, way.

Ben had never even been able to reach an age where he could drink, but watching those scattered about the building - there was a little bit of him that felt as if he wasn't meant to be there, but given that he had died he technically wasn't meant to be anywhere, so he could push this thought away pretty easily - he realised he could not really see the appeal of poisoning one's mind for a brief period of time. Having a mind that could grow was a wonderful thing, and it seemed to be such a waste to just throw that away.  
Fortunately without worldly senses, he didn't have to smell the place. Pungent drinks and an undercurrent of bodily odours filled the air in a way that would easily have made his nose curl if he had to smell it himself. Logically speaking, he knew that Klaus was somewhere nearby as he wasn't being dragged about by a rhetorical chain back to him, but he noticed pretty quickly that The Séance had quite quickly slipped off into the crowd.

So completely surrounded by life as he was at that moment, all that The Horror could really be aware of was the fact that his one life had been so unfairly snuffed out before he was given the opportunity to experience it himself.


	16. Care

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klaus tries to reassure Ben after a particularly unpleasant night of training, as requested by Juan for president, who I hope finds this worth the wait because it was a WHILE

The rain that was thundering down outside, stealing each and every other sound away with it's dull roar. For Klaus Hargreeves, this was a much needed relief, because it was far easier to focus on the sound of rain than to try and outright block out sounds that he did not want to have to hear.  
Rain always did have a way of washing away everything in its path, leaving behind something that was all the more tolerable, tolerable or at the very least more real in its place, so in the wider scheme of things, there was something about that of which was all there could be as a defense against the world.

But, as it so often was the case, the partial silence of which the lad was enjoying to the best of his ability was broken with a knocking at his bedroom door. It was not the insistent sort of knock that he had likened to his father, but rather the sort of knock that managed to appear hesitant through its softness, more so that of a frightened child - and g*d knew there was more than enough children there to fit that description - than anyone with any sort of self assurance.

"Can I come in?" a voice, Ben's voice, called weakly through the door, the few words he did say were punctuated with sniffles. Sniffled that brought a particular sinking feeling in the gut of his brother.

"Come on, then." came the response, Klaus shifting and shuffling about a bit so that he could untangle himself from his blankets.

It wouldn't have taken a genius to realise the something was wrong. There was always something wrong that came from the twisted torture - either physical or psychological or, worse still, both - that The Monocle put them through so it was a safe assumption that this would be the case, but he had still managed to underestimate things.  
The Horror was a sight to behold, and not in a good way, and The Séance felt his own breath catch in his chest. What little skin that was visible was dotted with an array of bruises, all the colours of the rainbow decorating him with torment that nobody would want to think too much about. His nose was still bloody with the remnants of what had once been a nosebleed, and his eyes were red and puffy from crying, tears still fresh upon his cheeks.

"Jeez, Ben, what the hell'd he do to you?" Klaus asked, almost instinctively shuffling over to the side so that his brother could take over the nest he had made for himself, patting the empty space invitingly. He'd seen spirits in better shape than the slightly shaking individual before him, and they had succumb to their wounds and died. "No, actually," he continued before the other was given the chance to reply, "It doesn't matter what he did, whatever it was was shitty and shouldn't have happened."

More than willing to take the invitation, Ben crawled over to the empty space that was being offered to him. At that moment, all bruised and battered about as he was, he looked all the more like a frightened child and less like a boy of almost sixteen.  
"He said that if I was strong enough, they," the clench of his shirt about his belly making it clear what he was referring to, "Would protect me if I was in harms way but I guess I..." He was forced to pause, his jaw was aching and his sniffling had come back with a vengeance, "I wasn't strong enough..."

"Like hell you weren't!" Klaus declared, this coming off a little more forceful than he mean it, and he was left feeling immediately guilty when his brother flinched. "Listen, Ben," he dared to continue, speaking far softer this time as to not frighten the other while he was still in a heightened state of vulnerability, "It has nothing to do with whether or not you were strong enough, he's a sick, sadistic bastard and he would have found some excuse to get you hurt no matter what you did. It isn't, and never will be your fault, alright?"  
The Séance had long since stopped caring, instead kicking against the world in every way he could. But even still there was a part of him that could never truly shake away the expectations, the gaze that managed to scrutinise each and every part of his whole damned soul.  
"Alright, you know what we're gonna do right now?" he continued, waiting for The Horror to gingerly shake his head in response, "We're gonna patch you up right as rain, then you and I are gonna sneak on down to the kitchen and get more cookies and cocoa than we can eat. That sound alright to you?"

The faintest ghost of a smile dared to cautiously creep across poor Ben's face, adding just a little brightness into the gloom that was settling into his being. It wasn't much, but it was an awful lot more than he had before and, well, that had to count for something in the wider scheme of things, surely.  
"Yeah," said he, "I think I'd like that."

With an expert sort of ease, Klaus hauled himself up to his feet and, following a short cluster of moments, had a small and tragically under-filled makeshift medicine box. He emptied the contents out onto the bed and, plopping himself down again, set himself to his task. There was a marvelous degree of cautious softness in each and every dab of ointment or fresh - but lukewarm - water from a bottle by his bed that he used to wash away dried blood away.  
In the end, he didn't exactly look perfect, but Ben wound up in a slightly less worse-for-wear state, and given the extent of his injuries, that was the best he could hope for.

"And now, for the most important step in your recovery!"

With the only sound being the rain outside, the brothers crept out of the room and skulked their way down the hall, silent shadows who muffled their footsteps so nobody at all would know they were there.  
The only evidence that they had snuck out of the room at all was that there was several packets of cookies missing in the morning.


	17. Photography

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klaus gets a camera and uses the opportunity to take a few photos of Dave one afternoon
> 
> also man I am not good at writing fluff actually, but I did try, nobody can deny that

The sun was shining bright overhead, slipping lazily through the leaves and dappling the grass with pools of gold that danced with every gentle breeze that swirled silently through the trees. The light glittered on the surface of the lake like countless jewels in the mid-afternoon sunlight. The happy gurgling of the water seemed to be beckoning all who drew close enough to slip in and forget all the worldly woes and simply exist as just another part of nature. It was a pristine, timeless sort of moment that seemed more like it could have been found on a postcard or old painting rather than reality, but reality it was and it was just as perfect as it seemed, as far as the two men who found themselves in the scene was concerned.

"Just keep doin' what you're doin' now, pretend I'm not here for a sec." came the instructions from none other than Klaus Hargreeves, who was at that particular moment perched on the raised edge of a stone bridge, camera clasped in his hands like it was the most precious object in the whole wide world.

"That'd be easier if you weren't standing there distracting me, I'd reckon." was how Dave Katz replied, amusement flickering in his voice in such a way that left the listener's heart mirroring the flicker in a way he particularly enjoyed. One would have to give him credit though, as he sat there dangling his legs over the edge, he did not let his partner distract him all too much, despite his stating quite the opposite.

Click, click, and click again.

In quick succession, the man who had decided to take the role of photographer that afternoon managed to take an impressive amount of photos with very little difference between them. He would, of course, pointedly point out the fact that Dave's smile was just that little bit wider between two of them, or there was more amusement glinting in his eyes in one compared to another.

"Careful, you don't wanna run out of film too quick now!" Dave protested, finally letting his full and complete attention wander over to the other.

"Nah," came the nonchalant response of the other, "It's digital, I've still got a couple hundred more I can take before we need to worry about silly little things like space." This was the first time he had taken the camera out anywhere at all, having only owned the device for a handful of days. It had been a gift, Vanya won a camera in a newspaper competition - things were looking up for her! - and was more than happy to hand over her older one to her brother, hoping that he'd get some use out of it, whether it was being used as a camera, or if he'd just sell it, or whatever, any use was better than nothing.

"Right." The new fangled technology was still a bit of a puzzle for the man, having grown up in the 60s, but he would like to think that he was getting a little better at understanding how everything worked day by day. Who knows, perhaps it would only take a year or so for him to be practically a pro at everything?

"Right!" Klaus echoed enthusiastically, "Now, just one more here methinks. I'll make sure this one counts!"

Well, he definitely did manage to get the shot, nobody could deny this. It was a particularly aesthetically pleasing one too, with the subject perfectly center frame with the waterweeds on the bank framing him elegantly. Unfortunately, however, as he leaned out over the water to line up the shot, his foot lost any semblance of grip it might have had. Klaus hit the water with a mighty splash, one arm sticking out awkwardly in an attempt at rescuing the camera from the same watery fate that he was subjected to.

"Oy!" yelped Dave, who sprung up onto his feet with far more grace than the other had managed to achieve, this having come equally as a reaction to being splashed and in case he might have to spring to action to help the now waterlogged creature before him.

"The camera's okay!" Klaus cheered from the water, more than willing to let the significantly less in the lake individual swipe the device out of his grip, relocating it safely on dry ground.

From where he stood on the bridge, looking down into the water, Dave was particularly aware of the so-called 'warm fuzzies' that people were supposed to feel when regarding the one they loved above all else. Like fair Ophelia in the water, Klaus had dramatically thrown himself back, his hair floating about him like a cloud in the water, the image made with the presence of floating plant matter drawn to him with the little waves his movements made. Unlike poor Ophelia in the water, Klaus' face was shining with life, with love, with happiness, light radiating from him as if he were the sun drawn into the murky depths of a lake.

It was not long at all before he was joined down there in the water.

With a laugh that gave away a particular lightness of heart, Klaus hauled himself up to standing in the water, not taking even a moment before he splashed the other man, who had evidently shared a similar thought as this as they ended up having the little waves they both created crashing into each other, splashing both more than they had intended. Like children they giggled, splashing each other in carefree play for a moment or so, their laughter joining the fine bird chorus that sung from the trees.

Gasping for breath, and with a smile upon his face, Klaus called truce, flopping himself directly into his beloved's arms, the other more than happy to accommodate this. Still dripping with lake water and just a little out of breath, Klaus' mouth met Dave's and at that moment everything seemed to be completely right with the world.

Klaus made sure to develop the last photo he took on the bridge that day, even going out of his way to frame it so that he could prop it up in a prominent place for all the academy.  
It was a pretty picture, none of his siblings could deny this, though they did have to wonder why it was that The Séance had wanted to frame a photograph of an empty bridge.


	18. Midnight Picnic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sissy and Vanya sneak out for some midnight tea under the stars

The stars that shone, and glittered, and danced way up high in the night sky was all that was there to see the two women slip out of the barn. Well, that and the old barn owl that resided there, but owls were wise old birds and knew when to turn a blind eye to the goings on that took place around them.  
Careful to muffle their footfalls, the only sounds there were at that moment came from the brisk autumn wind that was busy whistling through the farm.

Number Seven never could understand love, forever denied even the faintest scrap of it from the man who claimed the roll of her father, her own suffering ignored and treated as insignificant when compared to her siblings.  
The White Violin could not feel love, the madness and desire for vengeance filling her being and choking out any signs of kindness that still remained, hellbent on making the world suffer in the same way that she was made to suffer herself.  
But Vanya Hargreeves? She did not know or understand love, the spiteful woman who could not feel love was lost in the fog of nothing that stole her memories, the potential to learn what love truly was was all that remained, and the woman that walked along side her was such a wonderful teacher that her very heart seemed to sing out with all the beautiful musics that the world could hold.

"Ain't it too dark to enjoy this proper?" the blonde asked, still donning her nightdress, the misgivings that the words might have suggested were not at all echoed in the giddy excitement that dared to make itself known in each and every syllable that rolled off her tongue.

"I don't think we'd be able to watch the stars during the day," came the brunette's response, something gently and kindly teasing in her tone, "And besides, nobody is gonna find us out here when its dark."

"'spose so," Sissy replied, more than willing to accept this, "You seem pretty good at all this sneakin' out business, you reckon you did this before?" She said this gently, a simply little attempt at trying to jog the amnesiac's memory a little, which had thus far been a largely unsuccessful endeavour, not that these failures had discouraged her from trying to help the one that had so easily won her heart.

"You think I might have?" Vanya asked, sounding unsure. Although she might not have been able to remember it, when she was younger she had snuck out on multiple occasions when the academy was still closer to being all together; sneaking out for band practice and performances with Diego, sneaking out to have a sister day with Allison, sneaking out to unbiased libraries with Ben, and even once she let Klaus convince her to join him at a club one night and had hated every second of it. But without her memories of the time before she arrived in Dallas, she could not answer with any real certainty either way.

Having decided on a spot that was bathed in full-moonlight just enough to have the lantern they brought with them be more a precaution than a necessity, Vanya busied herself with laying out the picnic blanket that she had rolled up under her arm. This was not the easiest feat it could have been given that the grass was just getting to a point that the concept of mowing it was seeming like more of an inevitable rather than possibility.  
A proper gentlelady - she did get to join in with some of Reginald's lessons, just none of which would bring her closer to her siblings - she then offered the blonde farmer her arm and ever so gently assisted her on her sitting down upon the blanket, the grass below them crinkling in protest.

"Tea?" offered the White Violin, turning to the little basket she had brought with them, drawing out a pleasantly warm thermos and a couple of cups, taking a second to set them down before she could take out the last couple of things inside, these being a little bowl of sugar, a jar that contained fresh milk, and a little bag that contained a safe couple of the cookies that they two had baked earlier in the day.

"You didn't have to go to all this trouble, you know?" the other replied, nodding in regards to the offer of a drink, taking one of the cookies out of the bag.

"I know, but I wanted to," the violinist returned, carefully distributing the various components of the tea into the cups - milk with two sugars for Sissy, black and one sugar for Vanya - with a particularly soft sort of smile lighting up her features, "You do so much for everyone else so you need some time for other people to look after you for a change, you know?" This was punctuated with her handing over the correct cup to the woman she loved so dearly.

"Oh," said Sissy as she took her tea, the moonlight doing nothing to hide the way her cheeks flushed red, "It's not like I'm doin' anythin' special."

"You're always doing so much for everyone," Vanya reiterated, "But you're never given the recognition that you are owed and you frankly deserve better than that, than this life here."

As she spoke, Vanya had reached out a hand, gingerly taking the other's presently unoccupied hand and, only when the other woman gave her permission, interlocked their fingers together. It was such a simple gesture, and yet it still set their hearts aflutter.

"You know I can't," was how Sissy replied, despite this being quite the opposite of how she felt. If she could, she would leave everything behind in a last ditch attempt at love, but she had a child and could not risk putting Harlan in harms way, and she had some sort of loyalty - not love, per say, given that their marriage had been one of convenience on her side - to her husband, Carl, and so like a potted flower growing away from the sun, she had long since accepted that she would never be able to truly bloom.

"Then will you just lay here a moment?" the White Violin offered, her voice softer and more full of fondness than she would have believed she could ever utter if she were still worlds away, "Watch the stars with me?"

"I'd like that."

It might not have been much in the wider scheme of things, the women lying there hand in hand, heart in heart were nothing but tiny specks in the universe, but to both of them at the moment the other was all there was in the whole wide world, nobody but the two of them existed to them there, and that was all that really mattered in the end.


	19. Ash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All is not well in Five-land 
> 
> also the person who requested this from a different place where I upload these, so ye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for mentions of trauma and death!

It was not completely clear who had the idea at first, but given that the world was not going to be ending any time soon it having already been diverted twice already, there was all the time in the world for the siblings to catch up on all the missed connections that they were unable to form in their childhood, and they would be darned if they did not try to live as normally as six perfectly abnormal, superpowered adults and one abnormal, superpowered ghost could ever hope to achieve.  
There was a lot of grumbling and mumbling, bartering and flipped coins, and all the general sorts of disagreements that any set of siblings would so often have when each side happened to agree upon a matter but actively refused to admit this, but eventually it had been decided that they were going to have a camping trip. Campfires that seem to have smoke blown into everyone's faces all at once, s'mores that burn the insides of mouths, silly games that shouldn't be nearly as fun as they are, ghost stories that everyone has heard a thousand times over, bug bites that never happen when there's anything to sooth it nearby, the whole shebang!

Rather surprisingly, things had started off better than they had expected. Sure, they had managed to get lost no less than three times on their way to the campground, but given that they had expected to miss at least five turn offs, they went better than they expected of themselves.

The sun, as it had done every single day before and will continue to do every day to come, had slipped its way beyond the horizon, leaving the task of lighting the area to the fire and the scattered about lanterns. But just because the sun had left, that did not mean that the energy had left with it.  
Much to the giggling delight of both Allison and Vanya, Klaus had claimed a space to be his makeshift stage as he acted out a silly little ghost-based shtick that he claimed was based on true events, using a branch that he had rescued from the fire to bounce off, which so happened to have been made easier with the presence of an actual ghost, Ben, to wave the stick about in earnest.  
The smell of what would eventually end up being dinner was busy filling the air, the source being Diego and Luther, who had wound up competing to see who could create the best meal possible, neither really taking into account the fact that they really were not cooking for all that many people, and so absolutely did not need to go to quite the same extent that they were.  
Everyone was having a grand old time, and yet there was Five, the world's youngest little old man just simply sitting there, gazing into the fire as the flames flickered and danced in the gloom, his eyes not quite seeing anything around him.

Several not so good, long minutes had already passed by before anybody at all happened to notice that all was not right in the land of Five.  
It was Allison that had noticed, not that it would be any surprise to anyone that she was more attuned to others' emotions given that she had been quite literally trained to be more intuitive towards the emotional states of others to better manipulate them. Thankfully this training came in handy for more pleasant matters than simply just getting her own way.

"Why don't you come join us over there?" The Rumor asked as she made her way over to the little scrap, the offer containing several thinly veiled expressions of concerns, sounding more as if she was asking why it was that he was isolating himself rather than a simple offer. With an elegance that the others could only dream of achieving, she sat herself down nearby the lad, keeping a comfortable distance as to not appear in any way threatening.

Her question was met with an unsatisfying and more than a little concerning silence.

"Five?" she ever so gently pressed, tilting her head as she more intently examined the other, "Are you alright?"

"Have you ever smelt a dead body after it stopped burning?" came his eventual reply, his voice coming out little stronger than a whisper.

"What?" Although Allison said this as gently as she possibly could, she could not perfectly hide the fact she was thrown for a loop with this.

"It's horrible... The singed hair and clothing burns the nose and beneath it is the smell of what should have been just another person but there isn't anymore, it's just char and pain." 

Evidently the old man's words had carried far enough to stop the various merriments in their tracks, all attention falling on the two all of a sudden.

"Everything burned," Five carried on, his voice wavering as his breath hitched uncomfortably, "There was nothing left, everything went up in flames and all the people but me went with it, but the smell never left! I tried to get rid of it but it would never go away no matter how hard I scrubbed it was always there and I couldn't get away because it was in the air!" The pace of his speech raced into near illegible hysteria.

"But you're not smelling it now," Klaus intervened, "You're not smelling anything worse than a marshmallow that fell off a stick burning and you're not the only one that has to smell it. It's the smell of a campfire and if you want it gone you can walk away and come back when you've got some fresh air now."

"Klaus," Luther warned, "This isn't the time for-"

"No, let him speak," Diego stated, cutting off the other, "Replacing unpleasant associations with the building of better memories is a totally fair way to deal with your shit, and it's clear he's trying to deal with it now." The Kraken had indeed spent time in a mental health facility, and while it was not nearly as advanced as the one that Klaus had occupied, he had been able to recognise the practice that he was doing a less than stellar attempt at utilising.

Vanya, too, had previously had underwent therapy - her own experiences more voluntary than the others - and had likewise recalled the practice. But rather than intervening in complaints, she had set about cooking a s'more from the pile of snack foods that they had not planned to open until after they had dinner. As quiet as could be, she approached the gently shaking shape, offering the gooey treat to him.  
"You can cry if you need to," she asked, something impressively reassuring in her voice, "Because you don't have to pretend you don't feel things, but will you eat this for me? It's the only thing that was in the fire, and you are safe here. Could you do that?"

If Five was planning to complain, the part of him that was still the frightened little boy he had been when he was stranded in the apocalyptic wasteland for years upon years was more dominant than the monster that was made of him. Offering a small nod, and looking almost as young as his aesthetics suggested, he took the treat.  
Of course it would take more than a s'more to make everything better, but he was not alone and, perhaps, he might be able to make a start in the right direction and that's more than he let himself think before.


	20. Train Trips are the Worst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klaus and Luther have to catch the train after the Hazel and Cha-Cha ordeal
> 
> (Comic canon specific)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little content warning for referenced injuries

For all the marvelous technological advances that the world was so happy to boast about, there was one thing that managed to stay the same no matter how frantically the world around it changed and altered into something unrecogisable from what it had once been. This was, of course, the train. No matter how often they were adapted, shifted and reformed to try to keep up with the ever changing times, there was always something about the good old train that never truly changed, the heart of the mechanical beast never letting itself be adapted to what was expected of it. An admirable beast if ever there was one.

But the majesty of the train was the last thing on the mind of the poor Spaceboy and The Séance, the two being far from the prettiest sights to behold.

Klaus rested his head against the window, not feeling quite strong enough to hold himself fully upright. Not that this was the most pleasant alternative either. His head already hurt worse than he could recall it having ever hurt before, though this would have had to be expected given that it really was not all that long ago since he had his head unceremoniously bashed right in. On top of this, the window shook just enough to shoot another jolt of pain into each and every wound that decorated his once pretty face. His nose was broken, the reflection told him this as clearly as it could. Was the window the more graffiti covered and distorted of the two? Probably not, and if he had the chance to ponder this long enough it would have hurt him more than his bruised ribs could have hoped to.

Luther barely fit in the train seat, but he could not risk the effort that standing would entail. His movements were sluggish, even the most simplistic actions took a momentous amount of effort and it was not worth the struggle. It had been impossible for him to not know that his body was not truly his own, but now, having had the connections between mind and body shocked and short-circuited into malfunctioning made it all too clear that he was no longer himself but whatever it was that The Monocle had made him into being. Looking down at his hand, he focused as hard as he could to curl and uncurl his fingers, and yet it was as if it was the hardest thing anyone had ever tried to accomplish in their entire life.

It had been an unspoken agreement that the Televator was not an option. At the best of time, it left the user feeling discombobulated and even on occasion nauseous, and so in their bruised, bloody and broken state there was no way that'd be good for either of them. Unfortunately that meant a public train was the next best option, not wanting to have to try and think upon an alternative. Public transport was not the most forgiving space for the victims of time traveling assassin madmen.

If things were not already unpleasant, the fact they had wound up on the train at the time that schoolchildren were on their journeys back home from their respective schools.

The train had, despite its many many flaws, been quiet enough to not be completely unbearable until then, and they had that to be thankful for at the very least. Well, this didn't last all that long at all, of course, as the empty seats were quickly filled with the enthusiastic children that were freed from the confines of school for the day, providing the exact opposite energy that the two superpowered adults were radiating like a fog.

If situations were better, then it would have been perfectly easy to just tune out the resulting sounds, but things were not better, and oh! the voices were so shrill, and so loud, and so determined to keep talking - "Did you do the homework in study? Can I copy?" "Can you believe him? Melony from shop class and Cassie from bio? What a prick!" "Share your food? C'mon please! Just one!" "Did you see the flash in the sky in first?" - no matter how many people happened to glance disapproving glances their way. There were too many kids compared to glances, and their enthusiasm serving as an impenetrable shield.  
The voices were shooting daggers right into the aching Séance's still gently bleeding head, and he was wondering if it might be worth leaving and waiting until the next train. Had he been in a better state then perhaps a little supernatural mischief could bring about a bit of hush hush back into the train carriage, but his brain was more scrambled than usual, and so it was more effort than the reward would have been worth.  
It was getting harder and harder to focus on trying to respark his nerve endings back to how they were supposed to be, and the frazzled Spaceboy was considering if it might have been worthwhile speaking up to request silence. Has his voice been stronger than it was, then perhaps he even would have done so, and yet it was as if he had not been able to regain his own voice as it was supposed to be. The train was no place for a man that had only just gotten over being dead, and it was no place for a man that had a degree of his humanity snatched away to maintain what little life he could have.

There was only a handful of stops left until they were close enough to the Academy to get off and head back home. Thankfully there was a payphone on the station, so they could give somebody a ring so they could get back home and try to get patched up as much as they could in the state they were in. Perhaps The Kraken was still out? Or maybe Allison was still out with her friends and could take a quick detour? If all was well, they would be able to hop of the train and get back to safety soon.


	21. A way with words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Little Allison Hargreeves has always had a way with words, and Diego did not 
> 
> (vaguely reminiscent of little me and my own speech impediment rectifying nonsense lmao)

The Rumor always did had a way with words. It was not just her power that let words slip from her silvery tongue like silk. It was not just her training that made it so that she always knew just what to say, when to say it, and how it should be said. It was, to be completely frank, impressive and a power that no child should wield, not that they ever really should have had to wield any power at all, they were children after all!  
For Allison Hargreeves, words just worked, and so she was the perfect person for Diego to go to for help with his own.

"Now, repeat after me!" directed Allison, sitting cross legged on her bed, hair presently tied back in a neat ponytail that she had decided made it look like she meant business, "Brisk brave brigadiers brandished broad bright blades, blunderbusses, and bludgeons, balancing them badly." The tongue twister that she had selected was definitely not one of the easiest of the sort, but she had chosen this particular one because of its inclusion of weaponry. She had hoped that by using a tongue twister that involved The Kraken's interests then he might have been more willing to try.

"That's not a r-real one." was how Diego began, "Nobody can say that." It was fair that he had shot down this option, it was difficult and wouldn't have even been a kind warm up, let alone much use for helping him with his stutter if it was the first thing he was expected to say.

"Well, I can," returned the girl, "I have to be able to if I am to be a famous actor one day!" There was just a little bit of a boast in this, but this was to be expected given how heavily she had been trained into having narcissistic tendencies.

"Don't you have another one?" the lad asked, his pace almost sluggish to try and appear falsely smooth.

"Of course I do," came the response. The Rumor had a veritable arsenal of tongue twisters that she was made to memorise and practice until her jaw was aching, every single word having to come across perfectly. "Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager managing an imaginary menagerie!" 

"Imagine an i-i-imaginary..." Diego began, but as it was not as seamless as he had wanted it to be, he cut himself off prematurely. An encouraging gesture from his sister did, however, prompt him to try again. It would be a shame to let himself get too badly discouraged when they only just started, especially given how badly the lad was trying to prove himself. Even his request of his sister's assistance had come because he needed to prove that he could. But whether he was trying to prove it to himself or their father was not a matter he wanted to think about. "Imagine an imaginary menagerie..." he had to pause, gesturing for a prompt.

"Manager managing an imaginary menagerie."

"Manager ma-m-m-managing," he had to stop himself, gave himself a moment to clench and unclench a fist to try and center himself before he continued, slower this time, "An imaginary menagerie."

"Good!" praised Allison, sounding perfectly sincere, even if it was difficult to tell if she was speaking in earnest or just saying what she thought the other would have wanted to hear, "Again. Try not to restart this time, if you can."

"Imagine an imaginary m-menagerie," a beat, "Manager managing an imaginary m-m-menagerie."

"You got caught on the same word twice that time," the lass observed, sounding a little thoughtful with this, absolutely and entirely ignoring the groan that the lad uttered at this, not wanting to have to acknowledge the fact he was not absolutely and completely perfect.

"Can't you just...?" he stated, tapping his mouth to complete his questioning nonverbally. Diego had made this request precisely once before, and had been turned out immediately, and while he assumed this would be to the same outcome, it would have been an easier fix than having to keep practicing and failing every single time, forever failing to the the perfect figure that he was expected to be but could never be. It was unfair for him to have such horrible expectations forced upon him, but The Monocle had evidently decided that the best way to get him to push himself was to the limits as he did.

"I could," she returned, her voice picking up just that little bit of a singsong tune to it for a moment, "But wouldn't that be cheating? I mean, you would not have been the one to achieve anything, it would have just been me, so what would be the point?" Unfortunately she did, in fact, have a point in this and that was what made the other hiss a little through his teeth. "Did you want to try again?"

"Yeah yeah," came The Kraken's begrudging reply, "Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager managing an imaginary menagerie."

He didn't realise that he had said it perfectly, his irritation that had bubbled in response to the thought of being considered cheating on his own successes having ironically forced him into success. Had Sir Hargreeves seen that his conditioning had been so successful in damaging and altering the lad's - all of the children's - psyche then he would have been damned pleased with himself, the smug bastard.

"Diego!" Allison exclaimed, having not missed the successful attempt, "You did it! Try it again, just like that!" She was excited, more invested in this than she wanted to admit to being.

"I did?" he asked, bewildered.

"You did! Keep going!"

The sun had begun to reach out its long and vibrant fingers out across the sky, cutting away at the darkness and bringing about the morning before Diego slipped into his own bedroom, his mouth feeling a little bit like overstretched rubber. Although he had agreed to come back and practice again the next night they were both able to get away, he was still left with a distinct feeling of success, having gotten a little bit more confident every time.


	22. Spill all our dirties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A family meeting over the discovery of Vanya's book (slightly au-ish I guess, unless you want to take it as comic canon) and also this was a request from a different website

It was a matter of coincidences and conveniences that the man had come across the tail end of the interview at all. Had it been any other day, Diego Hargreeves would have turned the other way, taken a different street, followed a different path altogether, but it seemed at, at that moment, everything lined up perfectly so that he, The Kraken passed by the discount electronic store at the right time for him to see his sister's face on the flickering display television screen.  
Now, had it been Allison, he wouldn't have looked twice, for she was a common sight upon the screens, more at home in the limelight than anyone he had ever known. But it wasn't Allison. It was little Vanya, ordinary Number Seven, the cruelly labelled family disappointment that was marvelously not shrinking away under the lights.

"- And I hope that my book, 'Extra-Ordinary: My Life as Number Seven' can pull back the curtain of mystery that is my family."

Book? He didn't know she was writing a book. Especially not a book that was deserving of an interview. That said, the siblings were hardly close. They knew those who were able to grow to adulthood were all still alive, some more so than others, and were on card lists, but little more than that.

The thought stayed with him more than he had truthfully expected and, evidently, he was not the only person in the family to think so. The blinking of his landline had brought with it the request for a family meeting, and that he was absolutely not, under any circumstance, to let Vanya know - what else was new? - what they were planning.  
Although The Kraken had not yet read the book, he could tell that something was wrong and it was a fair assumption that the text was the cause.

He was not the last to arrive to the designated meeting point, a nondescript little cafe - literally, it was named the marvelously creative 'Nondescript Little Cafe' - where they wouldn't stand out too much. Well, they failed step one, as he could see the bulk that was Luther from the moment he entered the building. Beside him was Allison, who had been the one to summon them there, looking as if she had just stepped off a runway somewhere. Upon the table they were seated at was a book. A book that featured a photograph of their intentionally absent sister.

"Have you read it?" was how Spaceboy acknowledged his arrival, his voice grave.

"No, I didn't realise it was happening at all. It's about us, yeah? I caught the end of the interview." he returned earnestly, approaching this warily.

"She wrote everything!" exclaimed The Rumor, "I never realised how much she was hurting by being left out of the training and missions. All that supposed empathy training and for what? Ignoring our sister until she goes and exposes all our secrets to the world? Take it when you go, I have another copy anyway. I tried to support her!" With one hand she gestured an exasperated sort of gesture, with the other she clasped her teacup a little tighter.

"Did either of you know she was doing it?" asked the hulking giant of a man, his own drink, a simple glass of water, seeming almost comically small in comparison.

"I haven't heard from her since she left the Academy." Allison replied, and much the same sentiments were echoed by Diego.

"What, so she didn't even bother to ask us what we think before she went and aired our dirty laundry to the world?" the knife wielding man asked, "That's-"

"Sorry I'm late," interrupted a sauntering Klaus, "I booked in to get a facial today and I wasn't going to miss it." The fact that the individual had clearly seen better days suggested that this was likely a lie, but there were far more pressing matters at hand and so nobody thought to mention it. With the sort of nonchalance that one that had been running late should not be exhibiting, the vibrantly dressed individual flopped into the unoccupied chair.

"We were discussing our sister's book." Luther explained, visibly unimpressed.

"Whose book?" the newcomer returned, "I only have one sister, thank you very much, and as far as I am aware Allison here hasn't been writing any grand best selling books lately." It was a bold claim, but there was nobody there who genuinely would have believed that the fellow had disowned their sister, no matter how sour things were feeling. This was not a widely shared sentiment, however.

"You can't pretend like it didn't happen. It shouldn't have happened and its fucked that it did, but you can't act like it didn't." Diego commented, and, as an almost hesitant afterthought, he glanced to Luther, "Has the old man read it?"

"She sent him a copy," came the response, "Signed and everything but he hasn't opened it."

"I suppose that's for the best." Allison observed, "It's not like she held back in it." She had thought that she was a good sister to Vanya, trying to include her in games and the like, but evidently any time the siblings had tried to include her against their father's orders had not made the final cut.

"What did she think would happen? She was just an ordinary kid!" Diego exclaimed, having been flicking through the book and reading the occasional passage, "If she tried to join us she'd just end up getting hurt, or even k-killed!" Thankfully nobody mentioned the stutter, but he was very aware of it occurring.

"Should we, like, ask her why she didn't talk to us before she started writing?" Klaus proposed with little enthusiasm towards the idea.

"What? And give her material for a sequel?" The Kraken challenged, "She already got what she wanted, why do we need to have anything more to do with her? Vanya already made it very clear what she thinks of us!"  
The other few patrons of the cafe had begun to turn to them as the volume of the conversation grew, but the man was already making his way out of the door, book under his arm despite the displeasure he was already feeling towards it. Unfortunately his sentiment had rung true to his siblings. What Vanya had managed to do with her book was further stamp the wedge between her and her family, and it would take more than a footnote of praise for them to make things seem almost right again.


	23. Unrestrained

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, Vanya definitely isn't happy that her family missed her concert

"Well, you would know if you ever fucking listened to me for once!" Vanya shouted, the emotion cracking in her voice, pain splintering the ice that had long since settled in her heart. The stage makeup that she had been so proud of was smudged and running with tears. She lad long since learned that there was no use getting her hopes up because they would inevitably be dashed every single time, and yet she dared once and it left her worse off than if she never tried at all. 

"You could have been more clear that you wanted us to go." huffed Klaus, who did not want to take on the responsibility of admitting they had all quite forgotten.

"If you want us there, just ask! Of course we would have wanted to go." added Allison, who made sure that her tone was perfectly calm, perfectly soothing, just as she had always been told to when trying to win others to her side, or to lull them into a false sense of security, or perhaps even both.

"I did ask!" the violinist exclaimed, throwing her hands up into the air, "And I made sure to remind you all whenever I got the chance to! I even put a flier on the fridge for goodness sake! But of course none of you gave a rat's arse that I got to have my first ever solo in a proper concert tonight? You know who did come?" she asked, stomping a foot down, "Pogo came! Pogo always comes because he's the only one that cares enough to care!"  
Unbeknownst to the emotionally charged musician, the trees directly behind her were being buffeted about as if in a violent hurricane, reaching a catalyst with her last heartbreaking declaration where all the low-hanging branches were torn off with the same ease that a child would exhibit as they tear the wings right off the back of an innocent fly.  
To make it worse, the now disconnected branches were flung up into the air, falling any which where, which so happened to be a fitting description of how the siblings were spread out.  
"Did any of you even care enough to listen to me then? Are you even listening now?"

Well, nobody was ignoring her, that was for sure, but it would be a stretch of the imagine to think that they were able to give her the sort of attention that she so demanded while they were getting out of the way of the falling shrapnel that used to be considered a tree.

"Vanya?" The Rumor asked gently, but evidently not in a way that the enraged Hargreeves would even accept.

"Vanya!" echoed Spaceboy, who had been busy tossing aside the branch - it was closer to the equivalent of a medium sized tree, but he was a tad too humble to admit this - that had gotten a little too close to hitting the scampering Klaus.

"What?" she shouted, setting the higher branches to start shaking ominously.

"What did you do?"

Vanya had been so caught up in her own all encompassing self pity that she had not even realised what she had done, and what she had almost done to her family. She hadn't wanted to hurt them after all, she only wanted them to realise that they had hurt her. Once, twice, and then thrice she sniffled, the blinding white fading from her eyes, bringing with it a new flood of tears as the manic violin that filled her mind slowly fell silent, leaving her just Vanya, surrounded by her wide-eyed, panicked siblings.  
Luther stood tall, the proud leader that he was forced to be from a young age seeming a visible shell, the man willing to throw himself into the line of danger to ensure that his siblings did not get hurt. He did care for his siblings, more so than he cared for himself to be sure.  
Diego was doing a hell of a job of diverting the tree fragments from falling into harms way, trying to keep things as far away from his family, and out of the path of any bystanders who might unknowingly stumble upon the scene once they were gone. Of course he cared, he cared too much about everything.  
Allison still dared to approach the danger, whispering soft, earnest reassurance that all could be well even as she risked her own well being, perhaps even life, by trying to remind her sister that she wasn't alone there. She cared for her family more than anything in the whole world.  
Klaus could have easily run for safer grounds, but he would never leave his family in danger, even if he was left out in the open, if he was a target then the size of the target on the rest of their backs would be made smaller and it was a sacrifice he was willing to make. There was nothing else he could do but care.

Silent now, all the shrieks and accusations having died in the air she forced them into, Vanya sunk down to her knees, a frightened child that did not know what she did wrong only that everything she tried to do was somehow wrong.

Despite the potential risk for danger, Allison still dared approach the shaking scrap of a woman, crouched down to make sure she was not looming over her in a way that could be perceived as a threat, keeping herself at an arm's distance so that she didn't crowd her at all.  
"You're incredible." she whispered, genuine awe whisking away some of the strength of her voice.

"No 'm not."

"You are," The Rumor replied as gentle as can be, shooting her brothers a glance that prompted a rumble of agreement and barely legible complements, "You are incredible, and you have every right to be mad at us for forgetting, but it was not an attack against you, I promise. I'm sure you made the show significantly better than it would have been, and I wish I had been able to see you."

It would be safe to assume that the next time Vanya had a show, the first four tickets went to her siblings, and, dear reader, if you were to make this assumption you would be pleasantly surprised to find that this was correct.


	24. Extraordinary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanya Hargreeves (credited musician) as requested by both Jess10 and Radio Gaga (its a Frankensteinian combination of similar requests) to serve as a brief break from the hiatus I am evidently having now

Whenever the time would permit, and oftentimes alone - schedules so rarely worked to anyone's advantage, if one was to be completely and entirely honest with themself - the siblings did try to see Allison's films while they were showing on the silver screen. It was, after all, the easiest way to support their sister without having to have any of those awkward conversations that come about when siblings were apart for prolonged periods of time. That said, they rarely did bother to stick around for the credits afterwards, a shared consensus being that they were too slow and took up too much of their time - Luther was the outlier here, but he followed the group out when they chose to leave - and so were unable to give the credit that the creators deserved.

On one rare occasion, however, those who had managed to make it to the showing, Diego, Klaus and the manifested-but-not-enough-to-have-to-pay Ben so happened to linger after the feature came to a close. Apparently there was a bonus scene at the very end after the credits and they were sure as hell going to watch every single second of it. They had already sat through the entirety of a spaghetti western that was the second part of a series that none of those in attendance had seen the first of and so had not the faintest idea about what was going on in the established plot.  
What was important to them was not the story anyway, but rather that they were there to support their sister in her exploits.  
Oh you can surely imagine their surprise, dear reader, when they realised that they were not supporting a single sibling in their attending the film but rather two of them!

In the credits, under both the musician role and even background vocals to the performers that were singing during the film was none other than a certain Vanya Hargreeves.

"Holy shit!" was the wonderfully eloquent exclamation of Ben, who had been the one to notice the familiar name while the other two bickered about something unimportant - Klaus had his feet propped up on the seat in from of him and Diego was ever so kindly reminding him that doing so was against the rules, despite the fact that he was doing exactly the same thing - and so had been paying precisely no attention to the screen whatsoever.

"What's shakin' winne-Ben-go?" asked the most gaudily attired individual in attendance, lazily glancing over to the almost-solid ghost beside him. Evidently it either did not occur to him to look to see what the other was reacting to, or he was simply used to the spirit acting as a second set of senses and so relied on this still.

"Since when was Vanya in film?" the ghostly lad asked, sounding genuinely impressed, if not more than a little shocked.

"Is she?" asked Diego, wrinkling his nose as if this was somehow supposed to help him recall anything at all about a sibling that he had not seen in a good many years by this stage.

"Search it search it search it!" exclaimed Klaus, swatting the vigilante beside him - the vigilante in question could have absolutely stopped this friendly onslaught, but there were significantly more important things occurring at that moment - despite this definitely not helping the other in the act of uncovering his phone.

"Why don't you?" asked the man presently being swatted, attempting to uncover where he had tossed his phone when the film had begun.

"I had more important financial matters to attend to." This could have almost sounded responsible if it had been coming from anyone at all apart from the actual person who had so flippantly uttered these exact words.

The Kraken shot The Horror a questioning glance, eyebrow raised. The later mouthed a simple 'he sold it' which was met with a knowing nod.

It only took a quick searching, the longest part of it being the name 'Hargreeves' being autocorrected to 'hard grapes' more than once, but there on the search page, and just beneath the book - her most acclaimed work thus far - and above the increasingly less logical conspiracy theories about her role in the family was a series of film credits.  
The list was actually more than a little impressive. The list often, but not always, overlapped with those of one Allison Hargreeves. The list came as a complete surprise to the siblings that were huddling in the dark of the cinema with the light of the phone being hidden by a collection of perhaps a little more hands than there were people to match them.

"Did you know?" asked the ghost, who could not help but wonder if he was simply left out of the loop by his being dead, and that the surprise was simply the product of them doing things for his sake again.

"Haven't heard from her in a couple years." Klaus replied, despite knowing full well that the spirit had been stuck to him and so would have known if there had been any interactions with the sibling in question.

"Me neither," the other living being returned, brows raised in a show of genuinely impressed amazement, "Glad she didn't give up performing, it woulda been a waste."

"Oh absolutely," declared Klaus, his voice a little too loud for the shared space, "Does mean we have more movies to go to now though." He paused, his attention wandering over the screen with only vague direction, "Look! There's another she's credited for music in coming out next week!"

"Guess that's another cost to take into consideration then." The Kraken mused to himself, making it seem like he was considering the possibilities that he had already worked out the answer for before he even opened his mouth.

"Do we tell her?" Ben asked, leaning a little in a way that was made all the more easy by the fact he was not alive.

"Absolutely not!" the other two exclaimed in the perfect sort of unison that was possibly thanks to the fact they were siblings.

"Do you think Allison even knows we go?"

"I mean," Ben began, "I'd have thought so."

"Of course she doesn't! And! Now we have two siblings to silently cheer on now!"


	25. Oddly Alike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanya has friends and that is wonderful, even if they're oddly reflective of another group in her life. Requested by Jess10, who I must thank for their patience because they requested it a long while ago  
> Also try and guess which of the siblings correlates to which friend (RIP to Ben but he's dead in the original group so he isn't reflected in the friends despite the fact I love him literally so much)

Vanya Hargreeves was, at that moment, quite content, thank you very much. All around the world there were people that fit the description of being quite content, but what made Vanya's particular instance of being content at all noteworthy was the fact that she was so rarely granted the opportunity to be content. With the smell of new books and warm tea and cookies filling the air, the chatter of friends chasing away the risk of emptiness, and a smile upon her face, she seemed to be an almost entirely new person altogether. Her day had been remarkably unremarkable in all the best ways, and a trip to a little local cafe after visiting a bookshop was, in her humble opinion, the perfect way to end the day.

"You guys remember my show next weekend, yeah?" one of the mass asked, coffee cup clasped securely in her hands. This woman, known as Patty to her friends, was a member of the local theatre group, and while it was far from a known group, what mattered to her was that she had fun on stage, and it showed through her acting as she positively glowed, and not just from the mismatched stage lights. She had recently dyed her hair purple with a box dye and it had taken a group effort to make sure her hair was not patchy and uneven.

"I'm pretty sure we were the first to buy tickets." the individual by the name Nickolas replied, offering reassurance to the woman. They were an odd soul, to say the least, and was more than content with sticking out like a sore thumb. They had a particular habit of donning the garb of Victorian gentry, aside from the multitude of earrings encrusting their left ear, which often did lead to a confused glance or two from the occasional passerby or two.

"We wouldn't miss it for the world," promised Vanya, reaching out to pat Patty's hand, offering her the most warm sort of smile, "You've been working so hard for it, we absolutely had to make the opening night.

"You lot are too good to me!" exclaimed the aspiring actress, making sure she did this in such a melodramatic manner that she made sure her friends laughed, and laugh they did.

It seemed that during the course of the brief conversation, the cookie that Vanya had been absolutely certain that she had already eaten had miraculously reappeared upon her plate. Assuming that she had entirely forgotten about it, she merely dunked it into her tea and simply carried on. The guilty party, Charles - an intimidatingly tall man who had recently cried because he saw a little dog wearing a coat and matching boots - had ever so subtly slid his own onto her plate, a willing sacrifice.

"Vanya?" a voice from the other side of the building, by the door suggesting the speaker had likely just made their way inside, had called sounding genuinely surprised to see her, especially to see her among a group of her friends. It wasn't that Diego doubted she had friends or anything, but he couldn't recall the last time he had seen her out and about.

"Can you not see we are busy?" one of her friends snapped before she could reply. This friend, a man who went by Ace, had recognised the speaker from the book that Vanya had written and, somewhat justifiably jumped to the defensive offense. At the best of times he was quick to jump to protect his friends, but the worst of times came when this was not actually needed and lead to awkward apologies.

"And can you not see we wanted to say hi to our sister?" returned another voice from by the door, "Or are you going to lunge at our throats if we get too close to our sister?" The speaker, Five Hargreeves, made a pointed effort of repeating the phrase 'our sister' in a way of trying to claim superiority over the other.

"It's not like you've acted like she's your sister, have you?" remarked a young man by the name of James. He was a pleasant enough soul, assuming that the other side was equally pleasant, having once thrown a chair at someone he was not particularly pleased with at that moment, thankfully he missed and they still laughed about it to this day.

"Who are you to judge us? Who even are you?"exclaimed Klaus, pointedly wrinkling up his nose in a show of displeasure. The displeasure was not directed at the people that Vanya was spending time with, but rather reflected inwardly, knowing that they did have at least something of a point in their hostility.

"Somebody who actually visited her when she was in hospital last month." Patty stated simply, this clearly being something that bothered the woman a whole lot more than she had previously expressed.

Allison Hargreeves let out a little gasp at this revelation, quickly dashing away from the collection of her brothers to move over to her sister. With a clear concern in her disposition, she placed a caring hand upon her seated sister's shoulder.  
"You were in the hospital?" she asked gently, "I didn't know... Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Vanya returned, simple and civil, "Really, I am," she added at the look of doubt that followed her words, "I just collapsed a little, the doctors said I was fine to go."

"Why didn't you tell me?" The Rumor asked, a touch of hurt in her voice.

"Would you have come?" Nicholas replied, speaking over their teacup, not giving the one this was addressed to the courtesy of their gaze.

"Guys," Vanya said all of a sudden, something about her at that moment making it very clear that she was trying to smoothen out the situation, not giving her siblings a chance to reply, not sure if she wanted to hear their reply, "What matters is that I'm fine. Can we not get into this now?" she paused, letting her attention land solely on her siblings, "If I get time to tomorrow, I'll pop by and explain everything but I'm out with my friends at the moment, so this is hardly the time or the place for this, okay?"

It was not okay, not in the slightest, but they did leave her be for the remainder of the afternoon, even going so far as to pick a table as far away from her little group as they could. From where they sat they could, occasionally, hear the other table and each and every one of the extraordinary siblings were left wondering if they had ever heard Vanya laugh so loudly and so sincerely before.


	26. Antique Stores

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allison and Klaus rummage through old things in a store

The air felt particularly heavy, thick with dust and memories of a time that had long since begun its decent into obscurity. Both were easily accountable, old things had a peculiar habit of collecting dust no matter how often one might try to clean it away, and old things were, well, old and their time passes as either brighter, shinier and newer versions came into being or they simply were no longer needed. But things were not quite so ready to be forgotten, clinging to what they once were and, even when the world moved on, would continue to be.

From a row of dolls, all dresses to the nines in their threadbaring frocks and scuffed noses and eyes that no longer blinked, one of the gaggle of girls was shifted from her post. It had been so very long since anyone had moved the little doll, a coat of dust finishing her outfit in the saddest way it could have. It was a doll, a soulless lump of plastics and clothes, and so it did not have emotions and yet, when she was lifted from the masses it managed to look hopeful somehow.

"How about this one?" asked the woman who had lifted the toy, carefully cradling it in her arms as if she was afraid to offend the little thing.

The other waited a while before he answered. He needed to examine the doll to within an inch of its life, looking with such an intensity that would have looked exceptionally amusing for anyone who so happened to glance over at that particular moment. With a thoughtful hum, the man straightened up after his investigation, ever so gently folding his arms in an extra moment of thought.

"Nah, that one's all good." Klaus Hargreeves finally replied. He had not needed to spend quite so long looking, giving that a passing glance would have been more than enough to get his answer, and had only spent so long looking to make it seem more dramatic.

"If I don't find any better dolls," the woman, his sister and well-known actress Allison Hargreeves began, "Then I can fix this up and make her all nice and pretty."

The siblings had made their way into the antique and oddity store, creatively named 'Jimmy's Antiques and Oddities' because the actress wanted to find a gift for her daughter that wouldn't just be something she could pluck off any shelf in any toy store. It was not all too long at all before the woman begun to get the heebie jeebies, an outcome that often came from antique stories when the weight of time's progression began to press too hard, and the fact she had seen a horror movie the night before certainly did not help her consider the area quaint at all. That is where Klaus came in. She could simply ask her brother to check on things and ask if anything was particularly wrong, and by wrong she of course meant that it was his job to check for haunted objects so that she could go about her business. He agreed to this, of course, with the promise of a free lunch if he kept her free from ghostly goings on.

"Not this one though," Klaus said as he crouched down beside a larger doll seated on the floor, rather inconveniently in the way of the makeshift pathway, "Wouldya mind if we slipped by you here? We don't wanna offend you or anything." As he spoke, he made sure he didn't look the doll, or rather what resided in the doll in the eye.  
Standing back up, he rose to his feet again, raised a hand to his mouth to request quiet and then slipped on by the doll. Thankfully Allison followed his lead and moved by the object despite it being far less practical than just, say, moving it out of the path. As she passed, she could have sworn the air felt colder than the stuffy warmth of the rest of the room. She raised a curious eyebrow at this.

"You know the joke about things being possessed by drowned Victorian children?" he whispered, not wanting the doll's inhabitant to overhear, "Well, there one is."

It was a good decision on her part to invite him along.

After giving a few other inanimate objects; bottles, cups, glasses, plates and all manner of thus far unlisted crockery the mark of unhaunted approval, and a few things, mostly paintings - paintings managed to hold onto a part of the painter's soul, as the saying went, and so even if they were not possessing an actual ghost it still holds onto an intensity of emotion that might not necessarily be good to invite into a home - with advise to avoid, the pair parted way so they could look around at their own paces. Allison presumed it was a safe enough bet to assume the books were not going to be haunted, and if need be she could get her brother to give anything she found a quick once-over too.  
As she ran her thumb over the spine of a the books, all lined up in neat little lines like the tin toy soldiers that she had noticed her brother was looking at for an oddly long period of time. More than once she needed to wipe her hand on her trousers, the dirt and grime of neglected books building up unpleasantly against her skin.

"You find anything fun?" asked Klaus as he so happened to meander by where she was looking.

"No, but," she paused as she turned around, an amused smile playing across her features all of a sudden, "It looks like you have."

"What?" asked the man, the coat he had not so subtly donned crinkling as he clasped at his chest. Even if it did not make noise, there was no subtly to be found in the gaudy purple and green he had grown fond of. "I think it's neat."

"And you're going to get it?"

"And you're gonna get it for me?" This came with the particular sort of eyelash fluttering reserved solely for trying to get a sibling to do something for them

Understandably, this was met with a sigh, but as the woman adjusted the little stack of books that had joined the doll in her arms, she could not pretend not to be at least a little amused.  
"And I'm going to get it for you." A beat. "So, you ready to go then?"

Thankfully, and Klaus made sure the thanks fell upon him entirely, when they did leave, they left without any spectral tag alongs, and so the venture was exceptionally successful.


	27. Ka is a Wheel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world would end and the boy would be there.

The world would end and the boy would be there.

There were some things that were just meant to happen and so no matter how hard a person could struggle, the outcome was always going to be the same. Ka was a wheel, forever rolling no matter how hard it could be fought, never stopping it's eternal progress, but The Boy was stubborn. If the world would end in ruin every single time, then so be it! He wasn't going to just let himself get rolled over like so many others, no, he was not going to be resigned to his fate. If he could struggle hard enough that each and every time the world lasted for one more day at a time, that was a win as far as he was concerned.

But he was tired.

He had been tired for so many decades he could not recall what it felt like being well rested.

It was a hell of a month, and it didn't seem to be stopping any time soon.

The first apocalypse he did not know about, and spent closer to fifty than forty years paying for his innocence. In the time he spent wandering the hell-scape, he learnt that he was the only one out there that could truly understand why the world needed to keep going. He had been alone, tragic but not miserable, because if it was true that misery loves company he was not granted the luxury of feeling miserable, but rather had no choice but to keep pushing on. And he did keep pushing on, struggling and suffering and promising himself that he would keep pushing and struggling and suffering if it meant he could stop the end of the world.

The second apocalypse was so nearly diverted he was left with the now bitter taste of victory rotting on his tongue. Everything was so close to working out, it was so close that he was sure he could reach out and feel it brush his fingertips, but it was never that easy. Why would it be? He was allowed to get close enough to have his inevitable failure hurt all the more when everything did fall to pieces again. The world was meant to end, and it would find a way, but he would find a way to fight this with every twist and turn that was thrown at him.

The third apocalypse wasn't supposed to happen at all, they had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time in the most literal sense of the word. Even thrown into a world so different from his own, he was not daunted for he had survived like a damned cockroach for so long this might as well have been a luxury. But he did not belong, none of them did, and so the world laughed and the wheel of ka just kept on turning, but as it turned he fought and he struggles and even when the world no longer looked like his own, its survival had to count for something.

He did not trust the peace, but he did not want to inevitably challenge it.

Five had fought. Five had struggled. Five had pushed. Five had suffered.

Was it not time for him to simply be a child? Even if it was not real, his childhood, his youth itself had been stolen from him following a foolish display of hubris, and the world still laughed at him as he was forced to walk each day in the shape of what he could have, should have been. The face that he saw in the mirror was not his own, not anymore. He had given up his childhood and yet here he was, masquerading in a grand mask of youth.  
He could almost laugh, but it was as if his body had quite forgotten how. Laughter was the sound of innocent joy, and that was something that had been stripped from him, an unnecessary feature that was tossed aside when creating the man, the child that now sat upon the dingy little chair of a crummy motel as the moon shone overhead.

Sleep seemed like a distant memory, even with the snores and whistles from his sleeping siblings as they squished up in the undersized beds, or stretched out on the prickly carpeted floor. The Boy was so tired, but he could not sleep. Sleep was dangerous, letting his guard down was dangerous, being alive was dangerous. His hand shook as he brought his glass up to his lips, the contents having been drained more times than he could be bothered counting. He could suppose he was lucky, then, that he had an enhanced tolerance to alcohols and poisons on whole, otherwise he would have been able to enjoy a few moments without the weight of not only this world but the next and the last weighing upon his shoulders. How lucky.

Could he still cry? The circumstances certainly deemed that an appropriate response, but he could not remember how to cry. Crying was a show of weakness and he wouldn't, couldn't show weakness even if he wanted to. It wasn't that he thought his siblings would judge him, he had seen them cry when tears were deserved, though he wished that was the only deterrent. There was so much that he could rightfully cry about, including the fact he was perched on a mismatched chair in a no-name motel at plumb midnight, but if he started crying he feared that he simply would not be able to stop and he would flood the world.  
It would be ironic if the world was to end in his tears, out of all the ways, the possibilities that forever lurked in the back of his mind.  
Even at the very best of times, he knew deep down that they were all running off borrowed time, for the world was meant to end no matter how many times he fought, no matter how hard he struggled, no matter how much he pushed, no matter how much he suffered.

The world would end and the boy would be there.


	28. And then there was four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They were only 18 years old. Number Five was gone, The Séance had been kicked out, The Rumor had left to start her new life. Only four remained

"You're going to get yourself killed!"

"Like hell I am!"

The door slammed and as the hot headed vigilante-to-be stormed by. the girl who had been trying to listen in only had a moment or so to pretend to be innocently passing by. In his irritation, The Kraken barged right into her with his shoulder and he stomped by, paused for just a moment to steady his sister, then continued his huffing and puffing as he resumed his marching off down the hallway as if he hadn't stopped at all.   
This had always been a somewhat common occurrence, Spaceboy and The Kraken butting heads over even the most minor of disagreements, but it had picked up significantly in recent weeks. Vanya had noticed the shift, the shouting echoing throughout the academy, making it all too easy to tell where the pair was.  
They were siblings, Vanya had thought on occasion, why was it so hard for them to get along? The answer was obvious, the answer being much the same as it was for the question of why she was forever stuck creeping about alone while her siblings were off playing. It was one reason, and one reason alone. The Monocle. Reginald Hargreeves. Whatever the individual knew him as, the answer to the question of why the Umbrella Academy was suffering was always him.

For all the unpleasantness, she had to at least admit that the building - home, prison and everything in between - had a damned good library and she would be a fool if she did not utilise this. She wasn't sure how long she'd be able to stay, The Séance had already been kicked out with some finality, and she was hardly contributing to the group. That said, leaving was far from a bad thing, anywhere would be better than there as far as she was concerned, but she wanted it to be on her own terms.

"Are they at it again?"

"Huh?" asked she in a less than verbose way, having been so caught up in her thoughts that she was altogether unaware of the fact there was anyone else in the room with her.

"Space and Kraken," explained The Horror, who was nursing a heat-pack against his stomach with one hand, the other holding a book that he had made little to no actual progress in since he had started that day, "I heard stomping in the hallway again."

"Yeah," returned the girl, "They're getting worse, aren't they?"

"Mhm," came his reply, the sound escaping pursed lips, "I swear they're going to tear each other apart soon."  
Neither would be at all surprised if that was the plan all along. Even with her actual understanding of what took place when her siblings were taken off to train being woefully limited, she knew that it was nothing good. Even still, she'd like to take part even if it just meant she was able to suffer with them rather than suffering all by herself, missing out on the solidarity that her siblings usually had to hold them together.

"I'm surprised they haven't already," she agreed, flopping herself into a presently unoccupied chair, "But I hope they don't, it'd be boring without them here too." This came with a small sigh. Vanya had not imagined that she would be anything but the first to leave, the house having nothing for her now or ever, and yet the number of her siblings within the wall had dwindled from seven to four and she was still there.

"It does feel more empty now than its ever been, doesn't it?" Ben replied, the thoughtfulness in his voice trailing off, as if he had more he wanted but didn't want to say. A grimace fell across his features, the hand gripping at his belly tightening, the heat pack briefly forgotten. "I don't even know how much longer I'll still be here."

"You're not planning on moving away too, are you?" asked Vanya, the grim morbidity of his comment lost on her given that she genuinely had no idea how much her brother had deteriorated, and had been deteriorating daily, as this was yet another thing that was kept from her. "If you do, don't forget to take me with you, alright?"

"Something like that, yeah," he returned, trying to force a smile onto his features, and trying even harder to not let on the sheer discomfort that filled each and every inch of his being, "You'll probably get out of here before I do, Vanya. Rumor said she'd give you a place to stay when she's got her apartment set up and everything too."

"Did she?" asked the girl, this being the first she'd heard of this.

"Well, she said 'you guys can come stay for however long you need' so I'm sure she meant you in that too." The more he spoke, the more it felt like he was digging himself into a hole.

"Isn't that nice of her?" came the curt response from the lass, making the safe assumption that she was not, in fact, included in the 'you guys' he had mentioned. When she was little, she had hoped that she and The Rumor could have the sisterly solidarity and bonding that those in the books she read to fill the empty hours had, but as the years ticked by this seemed less and less likely, until the concept seemed to be tragically laughable. She kept this to herself, knowing full well that it was easier to just bottle up whatever it was she was feeling, not that they really mattered anyway.

"Yeah," replied The Horror awkwardly, rising to his feet with motions that seemed to be radiating apologies, "I gotta go, training and all. See you at dinner?" With his book set down on his chair, he was hurrying off, having lost track of the time.

"See you then."

And then she was alone, like always. She'd have thought that she was used to being alone, but even now she felt the absence. Would she really be better of if she left? It's not as if she would be any more alone if she did. But instead of thinking more on the idea, she simply set about losing herself in the books, giving herself a chance to forget who she was, even just for a short while.


End file.
